Tuesday, March 16, 2010

A few days off

Update: I have my bike back. I did in fact have to get my rear wheel rebuilt but the rest of the bike was ok. I actually rode it from 24th/Mission to home, up a couple of hills, and it wasn't too awful, so I'll be riding again soon enough.

And I know you've all been waiting for photos of the carnage!

Bike crash - 10 days later on Twitpic

Pretty serious bruising.

I complain about the hijinks/route on the Google ride but lo and behold when I go down myself, it is all my fault.

Going into the Foster City cutoff, there is a short section on a bike path. Yesterday I exchanged some texts with some riders on the road that I was trying to cut off at the water stop on the bike path in San Mateo. Turns out they were about 4-5 minutes in front of me and said they would soft-pedal until I caught up. So I dropped the hammer in pursuit.

On the short bike path leading into Foster City, I was smart enough to think "OK, this path ends with a bollard, have to set up the right line to get past it". Well, this in isolation was smart, what was not smart was thinking there was any point in taking that speed off the bike path. The bike path leads to a neighborhood which has a series of speed bumps, which I have ridden around/past/over dozens of times. This time, I just spaced it out, came off the bike path at speed and dug deeper. Instinct had me look up just long enough to see "no cars" and I put my head down. Within seconds I had reached the first speed bump, and was headed over the top of the bars with a loud crack.

Now that is stupid.

I have a pretty bad contusion on my right hip, and an upper back muscle strain. The contusion sucks but I have had one before and just as it starts to look really bad, it's ok to ride again. The strain is more limiting, it keeps me from bending over and will have to be in good shape before riding again because it limits shoulder checks.

The rear wheel which I just had rebuilt is pretty messed up and I'll probably need to have it rebuilt again. We'll also be looking at my fork for potential replacement.

Ouch. Haven gotten in 150 miles last week including some very hard riding on Tuesday this is a bummer, but onwards and upwards.

1 comment:

djconnel said...

Ouch! Rest up!

First, Ya's robo-spam-link comment seemed remarkably appropriate :) (I'm sure you'll delete that ASAP).

But why the "soft pedal"? That's trading TTT time for Murphy-ride-solo time. No offense, but I think the TTT is faster. They would have been better off waiting, or better yet, back-tracking to to join you. Plus, you would have been fresher when you joined them, better able to contribute.

But moot point, perhaps....

What fork are you going to get: Al steerer or carbon steerer? I'd think about the Al steerer being 100 grams well invested. In carbon steerer forks, the Edge is the "hot item".