Well, Sunday marked a day of firsts.
It was the first time I was in an ambulance, the first time in my adult life that I lost consciousness, the first time in 9 years that I got stitches. It was also my first bicycle accident.
I remember fidgeting with my watch on my bike. That’s the last thing I remember because I must have crashed a few moments later. Thank goodness for helmets. To be honest, I don’t really like wearing helmets and I have at times thought about not wearing one. Thank God that I just wore it, day in and day out, without any complaints.
I woke up in the hospital or the ambulance. I was asking if I was in Taiwan. I couldn’t remember if I was an ESL teacher. At least, I knew my name, but I didn’t know what happened. I have three cuts on the left side of my face with a few stitches, I don’t know how many, and I have abrasions on both arms and knees. Thoughtfully, the paramedics brought my bike with me to the hospital and it was fine.
I recalled my own cell phone number and my home number after I woke up and my wife was on the way. I was discharged as soon as my wife arrived at around 3PM. I had left the house at around 11:30AM. From my guess, I had my accident at about 12:30PM. The exact memories of what happened are a bit foggy, but I guess that I need to buy a bicycle computer. That would have probably avoided the fall. My watch wasn’t fixed on the handlebars, but on my wrist.
It’s the day after and my wife got me a whole bunch of treats yesterday. It felt like Christmas. I told her jokingly that I should get injured more often. Nope, I don’t want to fall down again. Ah well, with my using the bike this much, as much as I used it back when I was 15-17 when I was seriously training, it was bound to happen. New bikes are lighter, stiffer and have new technologies in them that take a while to get used to. I think I was distracted and then fell down. The good news is that I’ll be getting a new helmet this week and that I’m fine. The Scott jersey that I was wearing was a bit torn up on the shoulder, but I can still wear it. Still, I’m totally miffed at having torn that. It was a birthday present from my wife.
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Oh, my goodness! I was shocked when I started reading this post. I wonld never have expected this to happen to you, for some reason! I am so glad to hear you are okay. Be careful out there!
Hey Thoth, thanks!
Yep, still alive and hobbling around. Actually, I’m fine. I’ve got some stitches near my left eyebrow. I’m happy that I was wearing a helmet, otherwise it would have been bad.
My guess is that I was fiddling with my watch and riding really fast. I had pressed the wrong button, the LAP button instead of the resume button on my chronometer, and was just powering away. Those were my last memories before waking up in the hospital.
I was like: “Am I in Taiwan?” “I don’t know if I’m an English teacher or a math student. What time is it? What’s the date?”
So how will I avoid this in the future? I’ll just get a bike computer and that will solve this issue. I’ll get a Garmin Edge 705 with a GPS. That will be fun to have on rides.
The other thing was that I just changed my tires on Saturday for slicks. I wasn’t used to them and they were really fast. I was riding at 40-45 kph most of the way, shaving off 15 minutes on my previous similar ride.