Great trip, not so great bike crash

[donheff]

DW and I went on a VBT bike tour in Provence last week. It was great until I had a bad bike crash at about the same time John Kerry went down elsewhere in France. I was turning the route sheet over with my right hand and riding with my left when I came onto a couple of yards of downhill with a pothole. The bike sped up and I braked with my left hand just as my front wheel hit the pot hole. The results were predictable and remarkably similar to a crash I had a few years ago mountain biking - the wheel locked up and the bike tossed me like a rider off a bull. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Last time I broke my wrist, this time I managed multiple breaks in my clavicle and a fractured scapula. The Avignon hospital wanted to keep me a week for surgery but the surgeon agreed that flying home would be safe so I came back to get the surgery here. The VBT staff were great. Having a native speaker with me at the hospital made things go very smooth. Also, travel insurance was nice. They upgraded me to Business Class which vastly improved the flight home. I crashed near the end of the trip so I just stayed with the tour and flew on my scheduled flight. That allowed my wife to do the last day's ride and both of us to enjoy a few more dinners with the group (hurrah for pain pills). It didn't happen without photos so I am attaching one. As always, it looks worse than it feels.

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, this persuades me to not get into biking.

Glad you are doing OK and in good spirits.

 

[jabbahop]

heal up quickly. I love the VBT trips - how did you like the precrash trip to France?

 

[Ronstar]

Wow, that was quite a crash. At least your travel insurance and hospital care lessened the pain. Take care of yourself, Don. As we get older, it takes a while longer to recover from these types of setbacks.

 

[Danmar]

Sorry to hear about your crash. Hope you heal quickly and completely.
We take bike trips to Europe every year and last year one of our party had a very serious fall in Sicily. She is now OK but it was touch and go for a few weeks. My wife also had what seemed like a minor fall on that trip, but ended up with a broken thumb. There are some risks to biking esp when you get to our age, but still worth it I think.

 

[MichaelB]

Sure glad it looks worse than it feels, because it looks nasty. Glad to hear from you, good luck with the repair and healing. I will think twice about travel insurance from now on.

 

[samclem]

Ouch! Sorry to hear about your crash, it looks like it was a doozy. My wife's uncle (approx 70 YO) is an ardent cyclist and recently took his second bad spill. He's on the mend, but will probably do a bit less cycling and stick to the good bike paths near him and go when the weather is good.
Take care of yourself. Not to be a worrier, but do watch out for signs of wayward blood clots (heart, lung, head) as you heal up--you've obviously got a lot of bruising and the surgery also adds some risk of that, too. Best wishes.

 

[W2R]

Oh my, that looks so bad! Glad you made it home, and I hope you have a speedy and uneventful recovery.

 

[rodi]

Ouchie ouch ouch ouch!!!

I'll be in Provence later this summer... but plan to stay off bicycles.

Ouch!

 

[Tadpole]

Ouch! Hope it heals rapidly.

 

[ivinsfan]

Sorry to hear about your crash. Hope you heal quickly and completely.
We take bike trips to Europe every year and last year one of our party had a very serious fall in Sicily. She is now OK but it was touch and go for a few weeks. My wife also had what seemed like a minor fall on that trip, but ended up with a broken thumb. There are some risks to biking esp when you get to our age, but still worth it I think.

How do you make this decision, it seems with cycling the different between a major crash and a minor one is just luck. More moderate forms of exercise will give you a little warning with sore hips, knees, or ankles and we can adjust accordingly. We are big NP hiking fans and have noticed we are just gradually cutting back on the difficulty and length of the hikes we do. We now look for hikes rated easy or moderate, and will maybe do 2 or 3 easys instead of a difficult.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

Encourage!

 

[H2ODude]

I feel your pain, or at least felt a lesser degree of it when I broke my clavicle ~18 months ago. Best of luck and wishes with the recovery. I only broke the clavicle and had a choice of surgery or not (when 19 I just went for the brace and not surgery; worked out fine but I certainly learned healing is slower at 64). With a trip coming up I did surgery this time, and when they got in found another piece so likely a good choice. However, I still don't like the "feel" of the titanium plate there. Also experienced "frozen shoulder" afterwards that was taken care of with therapy.

I'd love to do what you did (well, the trip sans crash) but just can't get comfortable with road biking anymore. I'm just thankful it was you and the road without a vehicle mixed in there. Good luck!

 

[bbbamI]

Bless your heart....that is one big boo boo. Hope you heal quickly!

 

[savory]

Wow, I hope the pic is worse than you feel! We (me and DW) leave for a 2 month North Sea, self contained tour at the end of the month. First bicycle tour in Europe.

We've been mostly lucky with thousands of miles of riding. DW had a dislocated shoulder but this was while riding home on a bicycle/pedestrian path near home a few years ago. I slipped on black ice, different time, same path. It only hurt my feelings.

I expect you are hearing the warnings about riding a bike. As you know, when an alert and fit person (vs someone who should not be driving) gets in a car accident, the person expects to drive again. Because we are such a car culture, people can't imagine living without a car or warning the person that perhaps they should give up their car.

Hope your recovery is quick and you again enjoy the great benefits and fun of cycling.

 

[ls99]

Great colors, hope the pain is not too bad... IIRC Ronin had a bike fall a while back, he was saved by superb falling technique developed over years of practice.

Wish you speedy recovery. Though the body usually takes its sweet old time.

 

[donheff]

I love cycling and will jump right back on after I mend. It's true that we have to be more careful as we age but I fear a busted hip from a slip on the ice more than bike injuries. We can't avoid all problems. In this case, however, I should have known better than to adjust the map while riding. That increased the odds of a mishap. So does drinking on the ride but at least I use my left hand to drink and would not have braked the front wheel in a similar situation - just slid the back and maybe "skidded" by unharmed.

 

[Sue J]

Very sorry to read about your accident. I hope you have an uncomplicated recovery and are back doing the things you enjoy soon.

 

[TeeRuh]

So does drinking on the ride but at least I use my left hand to drink ...

wine?

 

[Moemg]

Get well soon !

 

[HFWR]

Ouch!

 

[haha]

Wow Don, that looks ghastly. I hope you can heal it up very quickly and completely.

Ha

 

[NW-Bound]

A bit off topic...

My superior memory told me that donheff once posted a photo of himself in a travel post. It was a few years ago, and my memory is not good enough to tell me how he looked back then, just that it was about an Alaska trip. Being nosy, I was curious to know how people age, so I looked but the old photos were gone.

OK, we are back to biking hazard and injuries now.

 

[MissMolly]

Oh my goodness! Heal fast

 

[Danmar]

How do you make this decision, it seems with cycling the different between a major crash and a minor one is just luck.

Sometimes but in our case it was obvious. Our friend was going maybe 30Km/hr on a paved road when she put the front brake on by mistake. Over the handlebars, face hit the pavement, helmet cracked in two, unconscious for 10 minutes. Luckily we had 5 doctors on the trip and they were great. Fall caused internal bleeding which almost killed her. She is in her early 70's.

My spouse slid on some gravel while making a sharp turn and was going very slowly. Barely fell. Caught her thumb somehow in the handlebars.