billh
05-23-05, 08:31 AM
Moderator comment: Billh, you are correct this deserves it's own thread. Enjoy.
vrkelley
Forum Moderator
===============
The local paper has a Health & Fitness section every Monday. Today it was about cycling. Curious what you think about it. Bill H.
link (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/healthfitness/story/04B5983FD6BD92728625700A0007821C?OpenDocument)
On the road to safe cycling
By Dave Luecking
Of the Post-Dispatch
Monday, May. 23 2005
Bicycling nearly killed me, and except for the grace of God, modern medicine
and dumb luck, my name appears in print on this page instead of in marble under
a tree somewhere.
No other good reasons explain how I cheated death three times in a three-month
span a couple of years ago to continue living and breathing, never mind
walking, talking, and, yes, riding . . . with my faculties and limbs mostly in
tact.
In some ways, I have been forever scarred by my adventures on two wheels.
Bicycling has given me . . .
An inch-long-by-half-inch-wide scar on my left shin where the carbon-fiber fork
of my road bike opened a gash after being sheered off in a 20 mph joust with an
Oldsmobile Achieva.
A right shoulder that aches after anything resembling a throwing motion, as the
result of being unable to stick the landing after cart-wheeling over the top of
the aforementioned Achieva.
A small indentation on my right shin where a surgeon had to slice a hole to
drain the crash-related infection that had festered for more than a week,
reached the circumference of a grapefruit and caused my lower leg to swell to
roughly the size of Florida.
More emotional scars than I care to admit. Suffice it to say the therapy seems
to be working . . . well, mostly working . . . sometimes.
I still ride, though not with quite the same passion and, dare I say, love as
before. I'd like to think I'm smarter now, more mindful and respectful of the
hazards of sharing the road, and perhaps that sense of caution has taken away
the joy. Or maybe the thrill is gone because I'm just scared, afraid of the
pain that accompanies falling flat on one's face in pursuit of the
risk-begets-reward scenario.
You see, when cycling morphs into something more than recreation, you get a
little crazy - in a good way, mostly - and you live for that perfect ride, your
legs and heart pumping, your confidence soaring. Before long, you feel limited
by the boring and mundane sameness of the nearby paved trail, and cycling
expands your world and leads you to the streets and into traffic where you are
exposed and vulnerable, with your well-being dependent upon the trust you place
in those with whom you share the road.
Sharing the road is hazardous enough without the cyclist adding to the danger
by being careless or inattentive, as I learned in April 2003. As I leaned into
a left turn off a small hill in Illinois farm land, I became momentarily
distracted, failed to notice the pothole and took quite a tumble.
The thing about having your front wheel swallowed by a pothole at 15-20 mph is
that the bike pretty much stops, but you keep going. One moment you're riding
high in the saddle and the next your bike's trailing 10 feet behind and you're
sliding along on the pavement, your flesh wounds being imbedded with tarry road
gunk.
A little road rash - even a lot of road rash - isn't that bad considering the
head, neck or shoulder injuries that can result from somersaulting over the
handlebar. Antibacterial soap, antiseptic and a generous slathering of
antibiotic ointment take care of road rash in a few days . . . except if you
miss a spot, as I did. A small discoloration that I believed to be a bruise
evolved into a civilization of germs hell bent on expanding their universe and
thereby threatening mine.
The surgeon's scalpel and a course of antibiotics ended that invasion, and in
no time I was back in the saddle, only to be nearly done in by a 0 mph rumble
with a semi in Washington, Mo., in early July 2003.
I had pulled up alongside the 18-wheeler at a stop light and stopped in the
trucker's blind spot, a very bad move. As the driver turned right, cutting the
corner way short, he didn't see the knucklehead on the bicycle standing in the
trailer's path. Fortunately, I realized the danger in time to dive onto the
sidewalk, getting myself and most of my bike out of the way, my heart racing as
the truck clipped my back wheel, then bounded over the curb and on its merry
way.
Like the pothole/infection, this mishap gave me pause - and a $150 bill for a
new wheel - but didn't slow down my cycling, which nearly came to a permanent
halt a few weeks later on a gorgeous July day - July 24, 2003 - because I
failed to stop at a flashing red light downtown.
Of course, any 5-year-old will tell you red means stop and green means go, yet
I treated this flashing red as a green and blew into the intersection of 18th
and Locust streets at 20 mph, incorrectly assuming that the drivers on Locust
also had a flashing red and would be stopping for both of us.
Nearly a fatal mistake, that one.
The woman in the Oldsmobile Achieva had a flashing yellow light, hence the
right of way, putting us on a collision course. I saw her coming, reached for
my brakes in a panic - and missed. She didn't see me at all until she heard the
sickening ka-thump of my bicycle and my body plowing into her right-front
fender, then saw my frightened face streaking past her windshield.
Hey, that'd freak anybody out.
From where I sat, the collision itself wasn't so bad. In fact, the anticipation
of the impact was worse than the actual impact - it seemed . . . to . . . take
. . . for . . . ev . . . er - and it wasn't until I went out of control and
into cartwheel mode that things got really dicey. It felt like sailing through
the corkscrew on the Ninja at Six Flags, only faster, followed by a violent
body slam onto my shoulder, back and behind as I crash landed on the street.
Though my helmet was scuffed, I remained conscious throughout the ordeal and
the first thing I told the woman was that the crash was totally my fault. I
figured that if the internal injuries kicked in, the white lights beckoned and
I passed to the great beyond, I wanted her to know that she was not at all to
blame for my stupidity.
In the emergency room, doctors sewed up the gash in my leg, observed me for
internal injuries, then sent me home a few hours later, battered and bruised,
to ride another day.
More than one person wondered whether my two-wheel mishaps were cries for help,
suggesting that I should have had my head examined as well. My standard
response was that these were merely unfortunate mistakes, correctable errors
from which I not only recovered but learned and improved as a cyclist. But over
time I've concluded that my mistakes were evidence of romance run amok - being
distracted, ignoring or not sensing danger, misreading stop signs.
So now I ride with trepidation, caution and an aversion to risk, all of which
protects me from the biggest menace I've encountered on two wheels - me.
Reporter Dave Luecking
E-mail: dluecking@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8188
vrkelley
Forum Moderator
===============
The local paper has a Health & Fitness section every Monday. Today it was about cycling. Curious what you think about it. Bill H.
link (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/healthfitness/story/04B5983FD6BD92728625700A0007821C?OpenDocument)
On the road to safe cycling
By Dave Luecking
Of the Post-Dispatch
Monday, May. 23 2005
Bicycling nearly killed me, and except for the grace of God, modern medicine
and dumb luck, my name appears in print on this page instead of in marble under
a tree somewhere.
No other good reasons explain how I cheated death three times in a three-month
span a couple of years ago to continue living and breathing, never mind
walking, talking, and, yes, riding . . . with my faculties and limbs mostly in
tact.
In some ways, I have been forever scarred by my adventures on two wheels.
Bicycling has given me . . .
An inch-long-by-half-inch-wide scar on my left shin where the carbon-fiber fork
of my road bike opened a gash after being sheered off in a 20 mph joust with an
Oldsmobile Achieva.
A right shoulder that aches after anything resembling a throwing motion, as the
result of being unable to stick the landing after cart-wheeling over the top of
the aforementioned Achieva.
A small indentation on my right shin where a surgeon had to slice a hole to
drain the crash-related infection that had festered for more than a week,
reached the circumference of a grapefruit and caused my lower leg to swell to
roughly the size of Florida.
More emotional scars than I care to admit. Suffice it to say the therapy seems
to be working . . . well, mostly working . . . sometimes.
I still ride, though not with quite the same passion and, dare I say, love as
before. I'd like to think I'm smarter now, more mindful and respectful of the
hazards of sharing the road, and perhaps that sense of caution has taken away
the joy. Or maybe the thrill is gone because I'm just scared, afraid of the
pain that accompanies falling flat on one's face in pursuit of the
risk-begets-reward scenario.
You see, when cycling morphs into something more than recreation, you get a
little crazy - in a good way, mostly - and you live for that perfect ride, your
legs and heart pumping, your confidence soaring. Before long, you feel limited
by the boring and mundane sameness of the nearby paved trail, and cycling
expands your world and leads you to the streets and into traffic where you are
exposed and vulnerable, with your well-being dependent upon the trust you place
in those with whom you share the road.
Sharing the road is hazardous enough without the cyclist adding to the danger
by being careless or inattentive, as I learned in April 2003. As I leaned into
a left turn off a small hill in Illinois farm land, I became momentarily
distracted, failed to notice the pothole and took quite a tumble.
The thing about having your front wheel swallowed by a pothole at 15-20 mph is
that the bike pretty much stops, but you keep going. One moment you're riding
high in the saddle and the next your bike's trailing 10 feet behind and you're
sliding along on the pavement, your flesh wounds being imbedded with tarry road
gunk.
A little road rash - even a lot of road rash - isn't that bad considering the
head, neck or shoulder injuries that can result from somersaulting over the
handlebar. Antibacterial soap, antiseptic and a generous slathering of
antibiotic ointment take care of road rash in a few days . . . except if you
miss a spot, as I did. A small discoloration that I believed to be a bruise
evolved into a civilization of germs hell bent on expanding their universe and
thereby threatening mine.
The surgeon's scalpel and a course of antibiotics ended that invasion, and in
no time I was back in the saddle, only to be nearly done in by a 0 mph rumble
with a semi in Washington, Mo., in early July 2003.
I had pulled up alongside the 18-wheeler at a stop light and stopped in the
trucker's blind spot, a very bad move. As the driver turned right, cutting the
corner way short, he didn't see the knucklehead on the bicycle standing in the
trailer's path. Fortunately, I realized the danger in time to dive onto the
sidewalk, getting myself and most of my bike out of the way, my heart racing as
the truck clipped my back wheel, then bounded over the curb and on its merry
way.
Like the pothole/infection, this mishap gave me pause - and a $150 bill for a
new wheel - but didn't slow down my cycling, which nearly came to a permanent
halt a few weeks later on a gorgeous July day - July 24, 2003 - because I
failed to stop at a flashing red light downtown.
Of course, any 5-year-old will tell you red means stop and green means go, yet
I treated this flashing red as a green and blew into the intersection of 18th
and Locust streets at 20 mph, incorrectly assuming that the drivers on Locust
also had a flashing red and would be stopping for both of us.
Nearly a fatal mistake, that one.
The woman in the Oldsmobile Achieva had a flashing yellow light, hence the
right of way, putting us on a collision course. I saw her coming, reached for
my brakes in a panic - and missed. She didn't see me at all until she heard the
sickening ka-thump of my bicycle and my body plowing into her right-front
fender, then saw my frightened face streaking past her windshield.
Hey, that'd freak anybody out.
From where I sat, the collision itself wasn't so bad. In fact, the anticipation
of the impact was worse than the actual impact - it seemed . . . to . . . take
. . . for . . . ev . . . er - and it wasn't until I went out of control and
into cartwheel mode that things got really dicey. It felt like sailing through
the corkscrew on the Ninja at Six Flags, only faster, followed by a violent
body slam onto my shoulder, back and behind as I crash landed on the street.
Though my helmet was scuffed, I remained conscious throughout the ordeal and
the first thing I told the woman was that the crash was totally my fault. I
figured that if the internal injuries kicked in, the white lights beckoned and
I passed to the great beyond, I wanted her to know that she was not at all to
blame for my stupidity.
In the emergency room, doctors sewed up the gash in my leg, observed me for
internal injuries, then sent me home a few hours later, battered and bruised,
to ride another day.
More than one person wondered whether my two-wheel mishaps were cries for help,
suggesting that I should have had my head examined as well. My standard
response was that these were merely unfortunate mistakes, correctable errors
from which I not only recovered but learned and improved as a cyclist. But over
time I've concluded that my mistakes were evidence of romance run amok - being
distracted, ignoring or not sensing danger, misreading stop signs.
So now I ride with trepidation, caution and an aversion to risk, all of which
protects me from the biggest menace I've encountered on two wheels - me.
Reporter Dave Luecking
E-mail: dluecking@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8188