I don't know where I'd have expected to find this piece, but it wouldn't have been the NY Times. Here it is nevertheless. I didn't quit riding after I broke my leg in '08, but I quit riding small-wheeled bicycles...and I quit suiting up like a racing cyclist for several months. And I did "cast about" for a reason why I fell.
Provocative reading....
2 comments:
I can't believe there's an article like this in the Times!!! They were reading your mail...
I’ve had several serious crashes over thirty one years. The first was the week after I bought my first “ten speed” and was promptly hit by a car. The car failed to yield and my inexperience resulted in me failing to execute what should have been a straightforward emergency turn for a more experienced rider. So I was off to a great start. The most painful was a severe collarbone break about thirteen years after that which, like Gina’s, resulted from an overlapped wheel during a fast group ride as I let my concentration lapse in tight quarters. When one is racing or especially when participating in charity rides with unknown (and sometimes inept) riders, one has to realize one is taking a few more risks. That collarbone break kept me off the bike for about a month, during which I rode the stationary trainer. An A/C separation, which like the collarbone, was a brain-is-disengaged injury, kept me off the bike for another month.
Its never occurred to me to give up cycling or for that matter, motorcycling. Just been a little careful when recovering from the major crashes. I am more conservative in my riding now. Old bones take longer to heal.
Interestingly, I once was in a spectacular car crash that resulted in my car being totalled; I had to extract myself through the sunroof. That incident made me far more leery of getting back in a car than any bike crash has kept me from getting back on the bike. I had to psychologically force myself to drive my wife’s car the next day.
I have no idea why I had what seems to be an order of magnitude worse psychological reaction to the car crash than I did the bike crash.
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