Thursday, I was out on a long ride and wrecked my old ten speed on some wet pavement. Here is a little GPS aided wreck recap in case anyone is interested.
I had been out all day—unemployment offers quite a lot of riding time—and was making my way back home when it began to rain. I would spend around an hour and a half in this on-again-off-again rain before my wreck, and though it was the cause of the wreck it also made wrecking a bit more pleasant.
The map below are the points recorded by my GPS and show my approach and speed heading down the hill. Click on each point to for a description (a few of the descriptions are really long, so you may want to view a larger map to read them).
A after this whole episode, I got up rather quickly and began check myself over making sure nothing was broken. As I stood there inspecting, I turned to see the woman who’s actions may or may not have helped me go down; make her left hand turn, look at me briefly and then pull away. There were several cars at the intersection by this point most of them sat staring; only one car (a young woman and her boyfriend/husband) came to my aid.
I won’t bore you with the remaining details, but I did make a visit to the ER. Nothing is broken just some really nasty road rash on both knees, one ankle, both arms and my left thigh. The coolest injury sustained would have to be my chainring shaped bruise on my thigh.
My bike didn’t fair too well. All the components appear to in good shape, but I will have to rebuild one of my brake levers and possibly replace my handlebars. It also sustained a rather large (half dollar sized) dent in the top tube where the back of the handlebars slammed into it. It’s a steel frame of course, so it should be ridable, but still very depressing for me to look at.
It’s a funny thing about wrecks, you hate to endure them and dread the prospect of them, yet you relish and relive them in the greatest detail every time.
Be safe out there!
