It'd be best if this post never has to be updated. Recently, a cycling friend of mine who was visiting me as I recovered, mentioned that he's had 15 bike crashes since he started riding. "You keep track?", I asked. "Yeah....I wrote a blog about them." Hmm. Why would anyone do that? Sharing the pain maybe? I thought, what the hell? I can do the same. Why not? But like I said, let's hope this thing never needs any updating. Here's my "Oh shit!" list.
1. Any crashes back east? I can't recall right now, except for the one on a sting ray at dad's when I was about 10 years old. I had another kid (Porky) on the seat and we were going down a hill when I hit some sand and crashed. I got a bloody cut above my eye, sharing the crap out of my parents. They were more scared than I remember being scared. And the other kid was laughing.
2. Mt. bike crash in Annadel with Brian. Maybe 1990. I was wearing a camelback. All I remember is doing an endo and landing softly on the camelback. Sublime!
3. Fall, 1994. Weeks after Brendan was born. I must have taken it too hot, but I slid out while descending Spruce on the left hand turn near Southampton Road. Road rash. Ouch.
4. Maybe late 90s. Just after a bathroom break in Tilden Park near the Brazil Room, on a ride with Brian (again!) and Caryn, somehow Brian and I tangled wheels and I had a slow speed fall and he landed on top of me. No harm done.
5. Around 2006, Aquatic Park, San Francisco. While riding at the Blue Angels show with Brendan, I caught my front wheel in the RR tracks that veer off towards the seating area at the waterfront near the Maritime Museum. I was on my fixie to make recovering even less possible. Boom! I landed right on my elbow. I had a camera in my pocket that took a hit, but survived. My shorts ended up with a hole from the camera. My elbow hurt for weeks, but eventually recovered.
6. May 2009. While finishing up day 2 of the Memorial Day Ride, at about mile 90 in San Simeon, Bernie crossed wheels with someone and crashed in front of me. I had nowhere to go but over these other two cyclists, but missed the bunny hop and flipped over, landing right on my left shoulder and breaking my collar bone. Riccardo was behind me and said it was like I ran over a land mine and exploded. Luckily, sag support was nearby (driven my Riccardo's wife, Cynthia) and she drove me to the hospital in SLO. After waiting a number of hours, the doc said I didn't need surgery, but needed to give it a number of weeks with a arm brace. I ended up staying on the trip to Santa Barbara, sagging and drinking beer. I think I was off the bike for about 7 weeks.
7. May 2016 (I think). While descending See Canyon Road in SLO, we got to the bottom, ready to fly over a cattle catcher, after which the road turned to dirt. I made a commitment to ride over the cow catcher pretty fast, making it smoother. But unfortunately, the guy in front of me (Matt) stopped short, forcing me to veer left, lose control in the dirt and crash into some poison oak bushes. It hurt a bit, but I got up and rode back to the hotel more worried about catching poison oak than any injuries. I bagged up the clothes, took a shower and didn't catch anything! And I rode the rest of the ride, achey for a day or so, but surviving no worse for the wear.
8. October 2018. Trying to avoid some stupid fuck coming off the bike path into the street (Peralta) while heading home, I twisted the front wheel of the mountain bike, stopped short, fell and landed on my left knee. Ouchie and road rash. Otherwise, I was just fuming from the dick who caused the crash and never looked back.
9. The big one. Nov 28, 2018. I crashed on a wet corner on Wildcat Canyon Road, breaking my pelvis. See the last entry for the gorey details! At the time of this writing, I've been off the bike for 10 weeks. But I have been on a trainer for well over a month. That's the good news and I hope to be outside soon!
That's enough.
