Joy falls down and goes boom
Once upon a time, there was an ok mountain biker who joined other mountain bikers on a mountain bike trip in Vermont. They all rode in orange and blue jerseys and ate way too many maple creamies and generally had a good time.
Joy, however, is a bit of a klutz and often likes to test gravity in the dumbest of places.
So after riding about 9 miles-ish to the gazebo at the top of Black Bear trails in KT, Joy proceeded to ride down her favorite trail in the park. Little did she know it would be a very short and painful ride... Here is the tale of how Joy wound up with a very expensive souvenir from Vermont:
Top of the gazebo by the Black Bear trail. All seemed relatively fine. Tired and hot but happy to be riding after having to work 3 days while in Vermont.
I started riding down Black Bear (hopping in the back of the MTBNJ train) and kinda went "ohhh... I'm tired... I should be careful"... then started to feel a little better and relaxed a bit. Steve got held up ahead of me and he pulled off to the side letting everyone pass him... including me... this is important.
I head down a little bit and I start feeling out some of the jumpy bits and try my hand at them. Meh... not great and I think to myself that I'll try them again later. The trail flattens out for a moment and then I lose control of the front end (it feels like I slipped on ice or something) and all I can think is "I am going down. Prepare for crash landing"... which is kinda weird because you often don't come to the realization you're crashing until you've actually eaten shit but I can't recover in time to stop this.
Now here comes the even better part: as the front wheel is sliding out and the handlebars turn and I start to go over, my shirt somehow gets caught and I basically spear myself in the ribs with the handlebars. 125 pounds of pressure on the end of the handlebars and they get firmly planted in the ground on one end and my ribs on the other. I untangle my shirt, fall to the ground and struggle to breathe. Luckily, Steve comes up behind me to help me out.
I can't take deep breaths and can't continue riding so Steve gets my bike over to the Haul Road (which is seriously only like feet from where I crashed) and we run into the rest of the team heading back up for a second go at Upper Black Bear. I tell them what happened and I start the long walk down the gravel road to get to the parking lot. Steve heads down ahead of me and tries to reach Alex who is off hiking but can't get a hold of her since she's out of cell service area. But Steve does manage to get a hold of Will who is a friend of ours from NC who happens to be van life-ing it at KT. They meet up in the parking lot and start walking up to meet me as I head down.
We get to the bottom and I hurt but I start to wonder if some of this is just the initial shock of crashing... adrenaline... etc. Then I try to get into Will's van. I can't. I can't lift myself up. I can't sit back in the seat. Every movement of me trying to get into the vehicle shocks my system with a pain coming directly from my rib cage. I am no stranger to pain from crashing, but this is fucking bad.
Will drops us off at the cabin where the rest of the MTBNJ gang have already returned "home"... I kick off my shoes, go upstairs to try to put on a clean shirt (I really stink) and I know that a trip to the ER is in order. Things hurt badly but what really concerns me is the fact I can't take a deep breath. I try to put my shoes back on but I can't because the pain is so bad so Alex lends me her Birkentocks and I slip them on and we head to the ER.
This place is depressing. Average age is like 100, everyone's in wheelchairs and it smells like piss. I check in, sign all the paperwork and explain what happened when I finally see the nurse who gets me logged into the system. She says she sees this type of thing a lot. It takes a while but little by little I am checked out and x-rayed and ultra-sounded and eventually given some over-the-counter meds as I am cleared to go home. Doctor says no breaks are showing in the x-rays but he can't say for certain nothing is broken without a CT scan. I decide it's not worth it since there's nothing they can do about that kind of fracture. If it's broken but not showing up, then it's a hairline and I just suck it up and deal with it. They also gave me a lovely little lung exerciser thing because apparently you can get pneumonia from shit like this. Awesome.
Things hurt but meds kick in and I rejoin the rest of the gang for dinner. I can't laugh but I do anyway because my teammies make me laugh. Sleeping is uncomfortable but all things I can deal with. The sneezing is next level pain tho. This happened July 5 and I still have major pain sneezing. I'm really glad I don't have allergies because this would suck so much worse.
KT vacation ends with little fanfare and I head to NJ to work in the office for the week.
I haven't ridden my bike since then and I still have some mild pain sleeping and sitting in various positions. I was able to do some light yardwork yesterday but that zapped my energy. The abrasions are all healing nicely. Minimal bruising. But the spot that hurts doesn't have a single scratch or bruise on it. And I look like a whiney little bitch because "I look fine." I am currently skipping tonight's group ride and going for an easy hike instead to test out the lungs and rib cage. I may try to do an easy ride tomorrow to see how things go before committing to any group rides later this week.
Pics:
Gazebo... the before shot.
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Getting checked in (vitals are all good BTW)
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The one-size-too-large but totally a godsend Birkenstocks
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The visible damage:
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