We'd gone just over half way on the ride and were descending a windy road. I'd been descending pretty fast all morning but on this stretch, I felt that there were just too many blind corners. I'd been going slowly (although slowly is obviously relative on a bicycle going downhill) and I came around a bend. Rob had thankfully dropped a bit back on me because all I saw was a car in my lane. A damn driver had chosen a blind curve (WTF?!) to pass another group of cyclists coming uphill. This was a farm road so there already weren't two full lanes, and she was all the way to the edge of the asphalt on my side.
So the second to last reading on my GPS had me going 53.3kph (33mph) and the last reading had me going 43.3kph (27mph). I remember slamming on the brakes and the back end starting to come around on me. I also remember thinking that I was way too close to stop and deciding that the berm on the side of the road seemed to be softer than the car. After that I don't remember much until I came to a stop. Rob said his first worry was that I was actually dead. But really, it's the second serious crash he's seen me in, so he should know better than that. ;)
When I finally came to a stop, there was a stabbing pain in my back and a burning sensation on my face. Probably the only saving grace of this particular accident is that I had to go so far off-road on my bike that I couldn't fall on asphalt. I got up made sure that no new cars were going to hit me and started checking things out. It turns out that the stabbing pain in my back was a dried wild-rose stem with huge thorns sticking into my skin. The burning on my face was due to fact that I'd gone face first through a patch of stinging-nettles. There were my only injuries. In fact, as far as I could tell I didn't even have any dirt on me. It was truly amazing.
About this time, the cyclists being passed made it up to where I was and asked if I was alright. I told them that I was, and they pointed out that the driver hadn't even stopped. It was at this point I started becoming a bit enraged. How do you run someone off the road and not stop to see if they're OK? Especially since I crashed right next to her driver-side window? She had to have seen it.
Since my body was in good shape, I went about checking on the bike. I mean I felt so good, I would have continued going :) On inspection though, that was just not to be.
Talk about really wanting to stop, right? I've slid the back of the bike before, but this one was more than just a flat spot. I'd gone completely through the carcass and you can see the puncture protection. In addition to this, both the front and rear tires had lateral slices in them from where I'd slide sideways through sharp gravel.
Worse though was the front of the bike. It appears that when I went off-road and fell the handlebars turned to the left and dug in. There was a good bit of dirt in the brake/shifters, but since it was dry most if fell out.
After getting our act together, Rob and I called Sally (who couldn't come pick us up due to her injuries) and she tried Adrian. No dice. We called Andy and no luck there either. Since it was clear that I couldn't ride the bike, Rob rode the 14 miles still to go on his own to get a car. 90 minutes later he was back to pick me up. Class that. One of the funniest parts of this whole thing is that during that 90 minute wait on the side of the road, an entire road race of cyclists passed by. There must have been at least 200 of them during my time and about 1 in 5 asked me if I was all right. I loved the concern, just hated having to tell everyone I was OK. I even had a friend at one point when one of the racers got a puncture right in front of me and had to change an inner tube.
After being collected by Rob, we drove straight on to the bike shop. With the race next week, there was no time to spare. And it was very cool being able to walk in and when asked how I was respond, "I've just come from the scene of an accident". :) The bike shop looked it over (the wheels were perfectly true still!) and with needed maintenance, cleaning, and repair the bill came to less than £100. Fine work I say.
At any rate, I'm home now safe, and looking forward to my next ride. I may however, need to get another bike. Rob says that there aren't any cars on the Mountain Bike trails. ;)
