I'd ridden that trail before, but soon as we turned off the road and began the rutted, dust-slippery, steep single-track descent, I felt "off," intimidated. I imagined myself crashing.
I ride descents like that one with my rear brake locked and tire skidding. I crab down, using the front brake only when I think I can get away with it. Maybe Ned Overend rides them at 30mph, but I don't; I skid the tire and crab.
Because I felt unusually slow and uncertain, I pulled over to the side of the trail and let my buddies Dave and Robert go by. No sense getting in the way. I looked back up the hill; no sign of our fourth, Derek.
I started down the hill. I remember that as I began rolling I felt clumsy; I had trouble getting my second foot in its clip. I remember the bike was pointed at a good-sized rut.
That's all I remember. I woke up lying in the trail. Several paramedics hovered over me, asking me questions. What day is today? Where are we? I felt pretty with-it and thought my answers sounded OK, cool even. I remember telling the guy examining me that, if he touched me THERE, he'd better mean it.
Derek, I learned, had seen the dust cloud my crash generated, saw a prone figure and thought it was Robert, who'd begun the descent immediately in front of him. When he checked, though, sure enough it was me, unconscious, mouth open, rattling noises coming out, tongue flapping, one ear all bloody. Gross.
Freaked ol' Derek out. He ran up the trail to a house and called 911. About then, Robert and David, up ahead somewhere, concluded that half the group had failed to follow them down the hill. They stopped to wait, then heard sirens, shook their heads and started walking their bikes up the hill. When they reached me, the paramedics were already on the scene.
First I got carried up the steep hill on a high-tech board by three guys who had to set me down a couple of times on the way. Then I got the lights-and-sirens ambulance ride. I stared up at the diamond-plate ceiling while the guys stuck I-Vs in my arms and asked me questions. It felt, of course, as if it were happening to someone else.
Somehow, somebody removed my beloved battered orange rain jacket, given to me by my friend Penny several years ago, and my jersey, a beautiful multi-colored Casati (bicycles) one given to me last spring by Signore Casati in
At the hospital, however, trauma team personnel cut my polypro t-shirt, shorts and tights off me. Sliced my favorite ancient holey-butt, double-front bib tights. Damn.
Ten hours at the hospital. Holding Shelly's hand. Chest X-rays. One or two broken ribs. Concussion. Double vision. CT scan. Scrapes and bruises here and there, a helmet strap burn in front of my left ear, cuts above my left eye and on my right ear. The blood that worried Derek did not come from inside my head, but simply from the cuts. Simply.
My
Today, the micro-shell remains intact. The ground chewed up the polystyrene liner where it's exposed below the shell. When you look inside you see cracked lining and glued-in sizing pads that have been forcibly moved around. You can see bloodstains on the lining and the shell.
As I type this, eight days after the crash, my broken-rib side hurts like mad. I have to close one eye so I can make out the words on my computer screen. I'm hoping the double vision will go away, that one morning I'll wake up and mysteriously it'll be gone. Meanwhile I can't drive or ride; I can't decide which center line is the real one.
Note: This 3mph mountain bike crash created more long-term inconvenience than any other fall I ever had. I had to wear special glasses for weeks and weeks – to help my two eyes focus on the same point.
I've thought about trail riding quite a bit. It seems to me that I won't do it again without at least one companion. Had no one been with me when I crashed, who knows how long I'd have been there, how long it would've taken me to find help. Luckily, we were on the edge of civilization, very near a phone.
You could say that I might've been going slower had I been alone, that there would've been less pressure to keep up with the guys. Maybe. I bet I wasn't traveling five mph when I crashed.
I don't think I'll do much riding without a helmet, either. I bet I can get Don Davis to send me another
You know, I hadn't crashed for several years. Maybe I won't crash again for an equally long time, maybe longer. Still, I think I've spent as much time in the trauma center as I'd like. Not that the folks at
I'm going to try to ride carefully. I'll try to remember, even after I've been riding crash-free for months or years, that eventually I'll crash again.
How about you? Why don't you, too, try to ride carefully. We'll ride carefully together, you and me, but separately, because you're there and I'm here. Let's do it. Whattaya say?
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