While I would normally just extend, crossing into the other lane and going off onto the opposite shoulder, as luck would have it a school just down the street, on what is usually a very quiet street, had just let out, so there was a line of traffic waiting at the stop sign across the street, making this impossible.
I knew immediately upon falling that I had broken something in my hip, and asked they guy who was stopped in front of the stop sign in his SUV if he would take me home. He agreed, so I was able to get home quickly, whereupon Deb took me to the ER. As it happened, the stitches in her hand from a recent surgery had opened up and she was dripping blood all over the place when we got to the house. In the confusion I left my helmet (ruined, I'm sure), sunglasses (ouch), cockpit light and taillight in his car. No contact info was exchanged in the mayhem either, so no way to get in touch with him.
When we got the results of the X-Ray @ the ER I felt very lucky, as I feared a broken femur, femur head, or pelvis. A fractured pelvis is really quite painful in a very thuddy way, vs a collarbone by contrast, which can be quite a sharp pain. There was no displacement of the bone in my case though, so, again, very lucky.
Road rash was very limited, mostly on my outer thigh, but quite deep. It's still not fully healed. With road rash, more shallow is probably better than a little that is very deep.
Deb stepped off a curb walking the dog 2 years ago almost to the day and sustained the same injury, so I had some idea what I was in for, but I seem to be healing up a lot faster, so perhaps my injury, sustained at 12.3 mph (Thank you Garmin!) was less severe. Let's hope so. Recovery is usually 6-8 weeks, so hoping to ride in 6 weeks. Will play it by ear and try very hard not to re-injure myself between now and then. It was 2 weeks now this Wed, and my mobility is pretty good, but I'm not taking any chances.
It was pretty reassuring that Deb knew exactly where I was, because I've been using LiveTrack on my new Garmin religiously, so she can track me via satellite in real-time. As it was I called her on the phone and told her I had crashed and was on my way home, but it did really freak her out. I guess the problem with her stitches didn't help matters. I had all kinds of problems with my new Edge 520 Plus not syncing with my phone, laptop, Strava, RWGPS, etc. but after a half-dozen mystery updates of Android and Garmin Connect everything started working correctly.
After about a week I took inventory and realized I was going to need to buy some replacement gear. Helmet, sunglasses (auto-darkening bi-focals this time around), taillight, cockpit light, bar tape, and sacrificial shifter fronts that Shimano now spits into an A and a B part, so you have to spend $12x2 plus shipping to replace. Right after they shoot all the lawyers, they need to shoot all the marketing people. A Total Rip-off, but still a lot cheaper than new shifters. (6700 Ultegra are the last triple shifters Shimano made, so those are getting scarce, as well as expensive)
I decided to brighten up the helmet for winter riding, because I often ride until sunset, and potentially after sunset if I have a mechanical, so I went with a color Bell calls "Retina Sear", in favor of the usual red & white scheme I tend to buy. It's a MIPS helmet as well, so I was happy to get it for only $55 from Amazon, though I've been doing a lot of business with BikeTiresDirect.com the last year as I like their membership benefits a lot. I went with a blue flashlight because Van Gogh told me to, and because my headsweat is blue & white, so they should look good together.
On the back of the helmet, below the CygoLite Dice TL-50 (less than 1oz) is a long sticker shaped like an arrow that points to seemingly nothing on the back of the helmet, labeled "reflector", and indeed, the helmet has a reflective stripe across the back. I wish it were red instead of white, but still a nice feature.
Another nice feature of this Bell Falcon helmet is the center vent is uninterrupted by any cross-member except for a slotted one made of the ABS plastic the skeleton of the helmet is comprised of. That leaves almost a full inch of airspace between your head and the top of the helmet all the way down the middle of the helmet. Talk about a vent!
Everything mounted on the helmet is soft-mounted with Velcro so it doesn't interfere with the shell or how it functions. The 85 lumen(max) Fenix E05 blue cockpit light lights up my day-glo yellow PI vest, handlebars, and front wheel, making it easy for motorists to recognize me as a cyclist at night, and allowing me to find the hole in my tire if, despite herculean efforts, goat-heads or thorns manage an unlikely rendezvouses with my tire/s (yes, I've had a couple of double-flats here!)
I still have to retape the bars, and fix the R-shifter, but hopefully sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I will be out there riding again!
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