Bicycle falling off incident highlights
November 23, 2015 § 49 Comments
There are a lot of things that happen when you fall off your bicycle because you are stupid, or because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because you forgot to wear your lucky banana.
- Every cyclist will sympathetically inquire about your alleged injury and conclude with “It could have been worse.”
- “How are you?” is always followed by “How’s the bike?” even if you’re bleeding out of the ears and still in the middle of the road.
- Ambulance drivers are pros at hitting all the potholes.
- It is humiliating to be stuck in the ER corridor for an hour while they find room for people who are actually in need of serious care.
- All your biking toughness evaporates the moment you realize that the blood you see is yours.
- There’s something satisfying about a pretty doctor checking out your scrotum, even though she’s wearing two sets of gloves and staring at your junk like it’s the most unexceptional thing she’s ever seen.
- Having the deeply embedded bits of asphalt scrubbed out of your road rash falls into the “New Category of Pain” category.
- There is a lot going on in your groin, but until you injure it you have no idea.
- The best pharmaceutical painkiller in the world pales next to a big aluminum tin filled with take-out lasagna.
- People who bring you cookies and cheesecake either love you or hate you.
- No matter how agonizingly the person in the room next to you is screaming, it doesn’t diminish your own pain one little bit.
- Doctors hate you for refusing painkillers. It means you’re not really hurt and it means you’re lying when you say “I’m not in much pain.”
- The seriousness of all injuries is defined by the ease with which you can sleep, eat, shit, and piss.
- Seeing a friendly face in the hospital make you 100x stronger.
- The only thing Valium does is it makes you not angry at having missed the Donut Ride.
- The only thing ibuprofen does is nothing.
- The only thing Norco does is make all your friends envious and gets you lots of requests for “the leftovers.”
- The worst way to get sympathy is to describe your injury.
- The second worst way is to describe your pain.
- The third worst way is to post hospital bed photos on Facebag.
- The best way is to say “I’m fine” and then when people ask you about riding, getting together, etc., to tell them you can’t do anything until they remove the feeding tube.
- Always keep a spare wheelset, and always keep a dozen spare sheets of Tegaderm.
- Your real cycling friends don’t care how you got hurt, they already know you’re stupid.
- Bodies heal, but broken bicycles are much harder to pay for.
- It really could have been worse.
END
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Cycling in the South Bay 
“There’s something satisfying about a pretty doctor checking out your scrotum, even though she’s wearing two sets of gloves and staring at your junk like it’s the most unexceptional thing she’s ever seen.”
This made me laugh loudly enough for people outside my office to ask what I was laughing about.
#13 I hadn’t realized until I read it; you’re absolutely correct. And people will be talking about your ability to do so, too. “Wanky had a big poop this morning!” “So glad to hear he’s on the mend!”
Will we see more missives while you’re in healing mode? Perhaps a FundMe will be called for to replace the broken bits of carbon?
Hope the healing happens quickly.
Mission accomplished!
Wanky doesn’t poop. He shits.
Hahaha!! True!!!
#8, #13, and #24 are shockingly true, even if they seem more trivial than #25.
I’m not sure how they fit so many muscles and tendons in the groin, and where they all attach and what they all do, other than hurt like hell for months.
Good luck with the recovery and remember it really is worth taking an extra week (or 8) to heal more than you think you need to!
Thanks. It’s a minor injury (could have been worse!) but hooooooo-eeeeee.
Oh my dog are you okay? What happened? How is the bike?
(Like that?)
Helicopter rides are the worst. Especially the part where they lift you into the hovering helicopter and put a sheet over your face to protect you from the blasting air and you can’t breathe. And having dirt scrubbed out of skin and then having your mouth and nose sewn back together was horrid. And I said yes to the pain killers except they lied it didn’t kill the pain. Oh and the bike was fine not even a scratch.
Whew. I thought you were gonna say the bike was damaged!
Please note that any injury suffered is much less serious than the one suffered by whomever is responding to your story.
I think the period belongs after “serious.”
It could have been worse – at least you’re still able to type…
Good luck on the recovery – both physical, and of the carbon-fiber variety…
Thank you!!!
Your timing is epic: No work on Thanksgiving for you. I hope you can eat whatever feast you have without the feeding tube.
Wishing you a speedy recovery.
Thanks! #secrettraining
Doh! thanks for the memory of a Thanksgivng in the 90’s when I literally ate turkey, gravy, potatoes and cranberry sauce through a straw after being blendered. :shudder: And it was the best food I’d had in a week.
When my finger was cut off getting doored by a car, the ER doctor asked if it hurt. My response was “I choose not to think about it.” He was clearly perplexed.
Wishing you a speedy recovery, Seth, particularly from the “discomfort”.
I would like to address #7 above, “Having the deeply embedded bits of asphalt scrubbed out of your road rash falls into the “New Category of Pain” category.”
In my first year of racing (1978) I fell down three times where I got nice big patches of road rash. The first time the ER doc ordered a morphine injection for me and it still hurt like hell. After a little bit of that torture he tried topical Xylocaine, waited a few minutes and then cleaned me up just fine and all I felt was a little warmth. He used the bristle side of that little sponge thing on me. After the subsequent crashes I did not go to the ER, just visited the EMT’s at the race venue and told them I wanted to be cleaned up and to use xylocaine on me before they started. They were a bit skeptical, but it worked like charm! YMMV.
Pro tip!
Seth, sorry. Take all the time you need to come back and be thankful for all that base you’ve earned.
Thanks, Pete! I just wish I could lose some of the stupid base.
Sorry to hear Wanky. I know you’ll heal up quickly. This is exactly why I never ride without my lucky Banana!
Mine is soooo bruised.
ferfuxache, it’s the solemn duty of a true friend to laugh when another friend crashes and laugh hysterically when a friend injurs his groin. I wish you good luck with your weeny hut.
Pup tent.
Next safety device for cycling: The groin helmet.
Banana basket.
#14 was certainly true for me. I hope plenty of your peeps come and visit.
Thanks!!
Very sorry about the crash and resultant injury. May your recovery be quick and include much pampering and sympathy.
Thank you!
Haha. Reminds me of the time I came a cropper on the wet tram lines in SFO and was doing some “self healing” in my hotel room. I went out with blood flowing down my leg and horrified people parting like I’d farted to Walgrens to stock up on second skin and antiseptic spray.
The scrubbing out of dirt and gravel with a large soapy flannel was soothing compared to the shock of what happened when I hit the area with the antiseptic aerosol. It was then I noted the “contains alcohol” on the label. With tightly clenched teeth and butt, a trembling lip and a tear in my eye I sprayed it again “for good measure” and dressed the area.
The next morning the bed sheets looked like someone had been murdered with blood and ooze everywhere.
I re-dressed the wound checked out and spent the 13hr flight home with blood filling my shoe.
At least my groin was in one piece…
That last line is oh, so key!
In the old days, of course, you could also have had interminable chats about whether or not you were wearing a helmet. I left a bit of my head impacted into the front of a taxi in 1989, just so none of you young ‘uns have to. Plus, helmets even look a bit cool nowadays (relatively speaking) so we’ve kind of killed off the whole debate. Probably a good thing.
Definitely a good thing.
#13 sums it up.
Though eating stool softeners like M&Ms does help a little.
“Pass the stool softeners, wouldja?”
Heal quickly and get out there soon.
Thanks!
The scrubbing out is the worst, but I wish I’d done it better! Now I have Westchester Parkway permanently embedded in my shoulder, and that’s worse 😉
Heal up Grandpa!
best, Tom Hall
Thanky, sonny boy.
Hope you get better. You left out the part about getting yelled at while you try to sit up to see what is going on as they leave you alone while they wait for the tech to check your xrays. I think that is the worse. Someone telling me lie back down to we finish looking at your xrays you can damage your spine. if you sit up. And then once that is done they go back to ignoring you. And you are left wondering if they have forgotten about you and when you can go home then you hear the best words in the world you can go home.
Yep …
Having the deeply embedded bits of asphalt scrubbed out of your road rash falls into the “New Category of Pain” category.
It must not have been very bad? The two times I’ve been to the ER with terrible road rash, they gave me a topical all over the burned/scraped areas before cleaning. They had quite a bit of area to cover.
The worst/best part was the scrub brush to the wounds. I couldn’t feel it very much, (whew!) but terrifying at the same time because my mind “knows” what that brush should feel like.
Someone reading probably knows the name of a topical to request. Request it. It’s the best $200 you’ll ever spend in an ER cleaning road rash.
Wishing you a fast recovery that includes extra grandbaby time.
Thank you! Trying to milk it as much as I can. Fortunately my pain and discomfort is but a trifle as compared to the heroic injuries and incredibly manly suffering endured by others!
It wasn’t bad at all. Just a tiny scratch. They used a loupe to find it and after cleaning they covered it with a mini- Band-Aid about the size of a dime.
Oh man, just saw this. Feel better fast. On the other hand, you nailed this list; nice to see you can keep laughing through the pain.
Thanks, Ted! As we love to say, “It could have been worse.” And as we always silently say, cursing ourselves, “It could have been better.”
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