Friday, July 24, 2009

I quit.

All I wanted to do was get on a bike, go for a ride, and have fun. Seriously. No training goal, no pace, no hill repeats, just fun.

Wednesday I decided to head out with a coworker of mine, Julie, for a post work ride. She's speedy lady who takes her riding pretty seriously, but as the plan was to do a loop on the Cap City Trail (a paved ~30m bike path) I was feeling relaxed and excited. That relaxed, excited, fun feeling lasted all of 2m....maybe that.

Coming around a slight bend in the path keeping a nice pace and KA-BLOOEY! Like pistol shot I( suspect the elderly lady up the path thought she was getting shot at) ,my rear tube flatted, exploding the tire off the rim, kicking out the read end of my bike and careening me directly into the pavement. I slide on the top of my helmet a bit, snapped my left cleat in half (I can only assume it happened sometime between my flails to unclip and my foot hitting the pavement), took a healthy gash out my elbow, and road rashed myself up nicely. F*ck that hurt.

Almost in one continuous motion I was back up and pulling my bike off the path. After I realized nothing on me or my bike was broken, my next thought was I cannot change my tire here, there are too many mosquitoes. Seriously, those buggers were vicious. So I schlepped my non-rolling bike probably a 1/4m to the nearest street and proceeded to pace, slap, and scratch while changing my tire. All while blood was running down my arm an leg. Probably my fastest tire change ever.

Tube changed, tire back on, CO2'd up, back on the bike...ish. This is the point I realize I'm not going anywhere. The wheel would sort of go into the dropouts, but not quite. I look down to realize it is bent to the point of hitting the chainstay. AH*&(^#O(*!!!! My hopes of limping my bike back to work and calling it a day where going to be more complicated than anticipated. So now I am left to stand, nay pace, up and down the mosquito infested sidewalk while Julie makes the couple mile trek back to the office to pick up a car.

As soon as I was alone and the adrenaline stopped pumping, I realized not only was I in pain but I had demolished a wheel. And so began the tears. I left Wyatt (who's RAGBRAI'ing it up this week and generally incommunicado) a tearful message which I realized after leaving was a poor decision. Seriously, what good, other than inspiring panic, would my tearful message do? So I followed up that voicemail with a flurry of text messages. Note: there are some times that my phone privileges should be revoked.

The aftermath....I hurt. Kind of a lot. As my usual protest of the medical field goes, I opted out of a trip to the ER. I don't think anything's seriously damaged. Except for the dizzy nauseous headache that won't go away... Oh and there is that bruise in the shape of my PT CPU (which was in my jersey pocket when I landed). I am in need of a new helmet (and am sooo glad I was wearing one), new cleats (somehow in my tumble I snapped one in half, strange) and a new wheel. My poor wheel....

Here's where the bike and I slid on our side.

Here's one of the distinct creases in the rim.

And here is the noticeable S-bend in the rim.


I don't know if I in the PT and the CPU when I went down. I didn't even check that out before boxing up the wheel. Only time will tell.

I'm not able to sleep because every time I move/roll/breath it hurts. I brought myself to tears yesterday when I sneezed. And please do not make me laugh, because, well, that hurts too.

Just another day in paradise...

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