My biking posts on Oppo have slowed down a bit, as I broke my arm falling off the Salsa last month. It was the regular Saturday night Zombie ride, and leaving the second brewery I almost made it down a flight steps down to the public sidewalk below. There may have been some liquid courage involved, but my thinking had been along the lines of “... hey, I can ride steps no problem on my mountain bike, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able do the same on my gravel bike...”
It turns out I under estimated how much more difficult riding stairs would be on a rigid, drop-bar bike on skinny CX tires. I was most of the way down when I went otb onto the sidewalk below. The sound of the impact made the nearest riders stop and circle back to see what was left of me. I initially got back on the bike and rode a couple of blocks until I realized I couldn’t downshift the rear derailleur. Not because the bike wasn’t fine, but because my right wrist was incapable of doing such a motion. When I stopped and sat down on the ground, I began to realized I wasn’t okay. I ended up getting a ride home, even though I was only a couple of miles away. It was all uphill through campus to my house, and the bike wasn’t in a gear I could slowly climb home in. It also would’ve been a terrible idea.
Finally tally was a small fracture in my wrist, a very small fracture at the head of my radius, a broken rib from my chest falling onto my wrist and testing my helmet with my head in it (no concussion, it was a pretty small head impact). I ended up in the full-arm cast, which wasn’t useful for much more than pointing dramatically at things. Fortunately I’m left-handed, so I haven’t had to learn any new life skills to do things like ass wiping.
My friends did a wonderful job of decorating the cast, complete with multiple hieroglyphic style depictions of the events leading to the cast. This past Monday I graduated to a short-arm case, which has made life better. I can even ride with this cast, at least on my mountain bike around town doing non-mountain bike things. Drop bars would be weird, but it works just fine for the upright riding position slowly around town on the Stache when I don’t really even need to use my right arm for anything other than shifting.
Tonight will be my Zombie ride return, albeit slowly playing tail gunner in the back on my mountain bike while in costume. And yes, riding around on pavement with my mountain bike on 29x3.0 rubber is absolutely absurd. It is so slow, and so loud. I can spin out in top gear on level ground without really trying all that hard, and there is so much tire hum. It will be awesome to ride again tonight, even if only doing so slowly on a widely inappropriate bike as the tamed cyclist.
A month of no riding has had some effects. I went to the garage everyday to longingly look at my bikes, and my chains have never been cleaner or better lubed. My Stache hasn’t been this clean since it followed me home from the bike shop. I’ve got one more week in the cast and then hopefully I’ll be back to riding for real again.
