Sooner or later...

Well, sooner or later, it had to happen. I have finally had a pretty bad crash on the bike. After almost two years of riding and only once falling off when not being able to get my feet out of the pedals, some kind of crash was pretty inevitable I think.

I was due to race the second of the Thames Turbo sprint triathlons on the Bank Holiday Monday so was going through the normal preparation of getting the time trial bike ready and making sure that all the gears etc worked by taking it out for a quick spin to Hampton and back. About 1k from my house there is a roundabout and I could see approaching it that it was safe so I stayed down on the extensions and tried to keep up the speed that I had to get round it, I must have been doing in excess of 40kph, but I still felt ok. I got about half way around and then suddenly had a shock when I realised that, I was in fact, going way too fast or I had missed the right line to get round. The pavement was coming towards me pretty quick and, for what seemed like an age now, I realised that I was going down and that there was nothing that I could do about it.

I finally whacked the pavement at full speed and then not really sure what happened after that. A couple of seconds later I got up and instantly checked the bike out...I was riding the bike with all the gear on so it had the best tires and more importantly, the new disc wheel. First inspection seemed to reveal that everything was in fact okay. I couldn't believe my luck and I think that I may have even smiled at that point. I had a look at the body though and I knew I was going to be in for some pain later on. The left hand side of the new cycling shorts had pretty much disappeared and taken half my bum with them, along with substantial amounts of skin missing from my leg and my arm as well. Nothing felt like it was broken though so slightly relieved at that. Thankfully, as I was not far from home, I simply got back on the bike and went to turn round and head back. It was at this point that I realised all was not well....my right handlebar pretty much came away in my hand when I pulled on it...the carbon bar had totally snapped and I knew that this was not gonna be cheap to replace.

When I got home, I also realised that the front tub had a bit of damage to it and then back one may need a bit of super glue to reattach part of the tread. So, all in all, about £300 worth of damage, so just about the most expensive km I have ever ridden.

I am flying out to Portugal tomorrow as well. It was supposed to be a week of really intense training but now it is looking like it is going to be a week of just trying to get the body to recover as quickly as possible. Still, the sun and sea have more healing properties than being stuck here in the office anyway.

I am trying to be positive about the whole thing, but it is hard. Yes, it could have been a lot worse, I have not broken any bones, it is not right the middle of the season or just before the Worlds. On the other hand though, Shropshire, which is where I was hoping to qualify, is only 5 weeks away and as it stands I am looking at missing about 2/3 weeks of proper training as I try to mend. That is basically a lot of running that I am missing out on that I really should be doing. Anyway, I'll see how things go in Portugal, I am sure that I can be back on the bike in a few days and then I'll see how I feel for running and swimming.

Everything was going so well....