Lesson #1 of Cycling: Don't Drive Off The Road

This one time I drove my bike off the road. Yes, I know, that's like the first lesson in cycling 101. It's been mentioned that I need to come up with a better story, but honestly, I don't have one.There were no crazy deer charging me or turkeys flying towards my head. Sadly, I just drove off the road...or at least I attempted to. We were about 17 miles into our ride and everything was going great. Don't most stories start with this line...everything was going great until...but yeah, seriously, the ride was perfect and then...

You might notice where the fall fail occurred...we can totally pretend though that it was on a crazy downhill and a crazy hurricane gust of wind blew me over or that a rabid deer came charging at me causing me to fall. But anyways...this happened...probably from the deer:

That's a lie...I know that this happened from the road...and I have a lot of other grosser road burns too but I figured I would shield your eyes from there disgustingness...I waited a day until things were less bloody to snap a picture - for your sake and mine - I'm not a fan of blood...especially when it drips from my body. The road must have been repaved a bit ago because there were layers of pavement near the shoulder with each layer having about a 2 inch drop,  followed by a larger drop off and a guardrail. I hit the first drop off and possibly the second...but the next thing I knew I was facing the wrong direction, lying on my back and staring at the sun. Luckily Erik had been riding pretty close to me so he was only a few seconds ahead of me and heard the whole thing. Apparently it was quite loud as my bike did a 180, skidded on the pavement and threw me down. Apparently crashing at 18mph is kinda loud...go figure...I'm just glad I have yet to hear the noise at any louder speed.

Erik quickly assessed the damage and I just laid there stunned at what had happened. Erik untangled me from my bike and a car traveling the other direction stopped right after they passed us and backed up. The driver threw his door open (his family looked horrified as they stared from the windows) and came darting towards us. The guy ran through the same basic questions and both Erik and the man agreed that my injuries weren't anything major since the majority of the things that hurt were bleeding. I assured both Erik and the man that had stopped that I would be alright and that I would slowly ride my bike back home.

By the end of the ride I was pretty sore and Erik was nice enough to patch me up and clean out my road burns. Apparently just taking a shower wasn't enough to "clean" them and he insisted that hydrogen peroxide works much better (FYI that burns like a ....). Surprisingly my bike was OK, with only a few minor scrapes and a tweaked wheel...my camel back saved my back and its pretty ripped up (but better it's tore up  than my back). The thing that hurts the most is my tailbone...the whole sitting, standing back up, lying down...(ok, ok) moving kinda sucks. Standing up may be the worst pain I've had in a long time and I never assumed coughing/sneezing would hurt my tailbone so much. My parents are convinced that I fractured my tailbone which is probably quite possible but realistically there's nothing that can be done with the injury so why bother spending time in urgent care when I can be out riding instead?

We finished up the weekend with a fast paced 20 miler Sunday which was rather pain free, because I was determined to get in some much needed miles. However, after a 11 mile ride last night, I'm thoroughly convinced that the only thing that doesn't hurt my tail bone is riding...go figure...