I didn’t choose the crash.
The crash chose me.
Why, I don’t know. It gnaws and gnaws and gnaws.
Yes, it was a race. Racing can be dangerous. But I’ve been at the game for a while and thought I knew better. When I could tell I didn’t have the legs to contest the finale, I decided to ride far more conservatively, choosing my lines based on what seemed to be lower risk areas of the road and staying away from the scrum competing for the win. All I wanted to do was finish safely in the group and I was prepared to jettison that if it seemed too crazy. But that seemed unlikely, as the roads were pretty dry.
Then, came the final mile. I don’t know what transpired. I vaguely remember a sense of worry, of getting off the ground, of sitting up on the wooden rail on the left side of the road, with everything a fog, save the last time up 110berg, when I felt like a made a conscious decision that I didn’t have the fitness to ride for a result other than finishing in the pack. My friend came by. He was, I guess, further out of contention than I was. He walked with me to the ambulance 300 meters or so from the finish. I got in the ambulance, he got my bag and took my bike, and I went off to the emergency room.
Helmet wrecked. One lens popped off my glasses and disappeared and the frame has skid marks. Lots of road rash—shoulder, back, arm, shin, knee, some cuts on my hand. A raw hip. Skinsuit ripped in a few places and black with road grime. New shoes looking terrible. Right pedal sanded by the ground. Front wheel out of true. Hood ripped. Tape ripped. I’m guessing, based on the damage, that someone swept out my front wheel by going sharply left into that front wheel. I’d guess I hit my head and right shoulder first, then the rest of my body, and that the bike slid a good bit on the right side.
The good thing about emergency rooms is they get you checked out right away. Clothing is cut off if necessary, and was. Brain scans, body scans, x-rays, a whirl of motion and tests and checkins and waits for more tests. The mixed message of emergency rooms is that the less critical your emergent needs are, the more likely they’re to cart you off into a corner and leave you there until things slow down enough so someone can read the imaging and patch you up.
Being left alone with nothing to do other than sense the aches, possible breaks, and bruises is purgatory. You’ve been punished. And you’re left to ponder why. No distractions. Nothing to read. Nothing to listen to. Nothing to watch. Just draped in a sheet and light blanket and left with no instructions or advice, not even a way to contact anyone if something like another emergency seems about to happen. In some circumstances, a poorly lit room with nothing to see or do could be taken as sensory deprivation, and that can be restful—just close your eyes and mentally wander–but the concussion, aches and pains and being naked in a strange place is not a time for daydreaming.
It seems like they don’t want to clean your wounds unless a doctor is doing it. So mine were left nasty.
Stewing is about the only thing left. I thought I had played the odds right; years of experience led my to believe that my biggest risk, as it were, was having a gap open in front of me before the finish. And I wasn’t aggressively fighting for wheels, or trying to find the best draft, just surfing wheels to have a good draft for an easy finish to another race, so…
Day ruined. Weekend ruined. Bike? Maybe the next month or two off the bike. And maybe not able to do anything else. No idea.
What I then turn to is trying to figure out why. With no memory of the moment, I couldn’t. Still, the what-ifs gnaw. What if I had been on the right side of the road? What if I had been back a bit more? What if I had sat up? There are no answers to these questions because not only are they unknowable, they don’t matter, and probably aren’t worth the time and effort to ponder. Maybe the crash would have been worse. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all. It’s really impossible to separate this from the rest of one’s life because these small differences have kept me alive all these years. Maybe I would have been run over by a car when I was three. Or in an airplane that crashed—or, more likely, in a car crash. Maybe my bout with e coli would have killed me. There’s no way to know which event led to the next event, and which inch saved one’s life or would have ended it.
I had already broken my hand, fifth metacarpal on the left, in March, breaking a helmet in the process. That was almost two months of recovery, of walking, of missing the riding and the spring easing out of winter.
Official prognosis: a type three separation of my right ac joint. Which may or may not require surgery. Six stitches to bring the skin on my shoulder back together.
Looking like my worst year ever, in terms of injury. I don’t bounce like I used to.
Whether in the ER, or fully awake trying to do something with my right arm, or trying to sleep, the injuries are with me. It’s impossible not to go back to wondering about the crash, then wondering when I’ll ride again, or what risks I should think about not taking again.
As much as the pain is real and the time in recovery doesn’t come back, perhaps the real issue is the lack of control. We say that we choose our fates, but crashes like this feel as if my fate chose me.
In Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, he writes,
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
The crash is the one grassy and in want of wear, I suppose. It’s one I’m regretfully on, bringing me pains, sights, sounds, concerns, changes that I wasn’t interested in discovering. But since I had taken the other road most of my life, I suppose it was possible that this road would force itself on me.
The road chosen for us dictates so much. Depending on the road chosen, the vector of life is altered. I’ll put luck at the center of this choice that has been made for me.
If this hadn’t happened, I would have finished another race, seen some friends, rolled home, taken a nap, and got on with my regularly scheduled life. Sunday would have been another ride. And the race probably a minor memory. Monday, I would have had more time for work and my only bike concern would have been cleaning it, maybe finally putting on the new tires I’d been avoiding installing. I’d be making plans for races and rides that week, the weekend, and through the month. How I wish this alternate scenario had occurred, how I wish I wasn’t taking time off from riding and pining for a return to roads I haven’t seen in too long. Ironically, the crash that chose me has made my summer all the more memorable.
But my scenario, the one that chose me, leaves me with more questions than I know to answer. A psychological workout that will take time and need help to answer. Can I do this sort of thing again? What happens the next time I crash on this shoulder? What kind of risk is wise to take? And if I take the risk, how comfortable will I be at it? The physical workout, whether it’s surgery or therapy or both, will further take me down another road, building back to “normal” when I wanted to continue beyond.
And having chosen me, my life moves in a direction I don’t want to take and don’t see an upside to—unless in so doing, I have unwittingly saved my life because I wasn’t in the wrong place at the right time. A holiday from bike riding, in a more perfect world, would leave me the ability to do other things with my body that this crash is preventing me from doing. There are no shortage of home tasks of building, fixing, painting, moving that I’d otherwise engage in. Right now, even standing for too long hurts my shoulder.
I’d like to think I’m not so narrow of interests that missing bike rides is a hole in my life. At the same time, the bike has been a constant companion, and one that I use to seek equilibrium for mind and body. It’s not only the mental and physical engagement, but in the opportunity to detach from everything else. But right now, the days are longer and less easy. The nights tougher and sleep less restful. Detachment is harder. While I have a bit more time, that time isn’t as relaxing—though, to be fair, some of the time has been filled with paperwork, doctor and therapist visits, and the extra time I need to go from one place to another, now that a bike can’t get me there faster. I’d love to know what happened, but no one is telling and the friend who took it upon himself to scan crash videos on YouTube hasn’t found it.
It still gnaws. Waking up, wanting to get on the bike and get out of here. Wanting to feel ‘normal.’ The road the crash chose for me is not the one I want to be on. But I don’t see any alternative.
JP, I hope this doesn’t take long to get over. I’m sorry this happened to you.