Road Cycling - crash, broken elbow...warning, attached pic is a little nasty

3 weeks into a 12 week recovery, or so they say.

The weather is awesome today, and I'm just feeling sorry for myself.

Mike: Glad to see you are on the mend. How's the Calfee?

Dave Thompson

ouch!

Is your bike okay?

Hope you get better soon so you can get back on the bike :D

:eek: Just a few more glow-in-the-dark band aids and you should be ok. ;) :D

Wishing you to a fast recovery!

Glad to hear you're on the mend! How'd it happen? (just for our education, of course!) :D

Ouch. Hope you're back in the saddle soon.

What got you in trouble?

Ooh nasty!

Hope you mend soon.

Thanks for all the well wishes...

I had the bike, Calfee, checked out and it survived with no problems. :)

I was riding with 3 other guys from my club and we had just about finished a 2+ hour ride...great ride, dry roads, warm sun and no wind. The riding was pretty fast and had a few decent hills.

We were basically cooling down and taking it easy the last couple of miles back to the car and the disciplined paceline riding had broken up. There were 2 riders side by side in front of me and one of them made a comment about his saddle...I looked over and I guess the rider in front of me did too, and slowed a little.

My front tire touched his back tire and I went down fast...I guess we were doing about 18-20 mph at the time. Bottom line was a lack of concentration on my part, only for a moment, but obviously enough.

Ewwwww! That looks bad. Nasty fall ,but hopefully you'll be back to normal soon.

sorry about your accident

tomorrow i will probably be discharged after 6 months after my accident.... cast, PT, surgery, cast, PT, PT.

I'm finally back on the bike... WOOHOO!!!!

Last January, I had a crash at 25 mph. I was the last guy in a 3 man paceline and they did not mention the pot hole (well the second guy did so I had about a .2 sec warning). I felt my handlebars twitch when I hit the edge and then an impact and the next thing I knew I was lying on my side about 12' from the road on the grass feeling too much pain to move. I landed on my head, crushed my helmet, landed on my right shoulder and right elbow and bounced into the grass. I didn't have any road rash.

I did have a broken collar bone (clavicle), a broken shoulder blade (scapular), and two really nasty breaks at the end of my ulna (proximal end - the elbow end). Oddly enough, the ripped and torn muscles in my right torso were much much more painful then the bones. I also had a nice gouge over my shoulder blade. The medical people at the urgent care place asked me if it hurt whilst the scrubbed it out. I guess they were amazed at my pain tolerance. Actually, it wasn't that, it was just with all the other places that hurt, my body did not get around to noticing that injury. Interesting thing was that hydrogen peroxide worked best in cleaning the wound. It fizzes out dirt particles. And the stuff is cheap and doesn't sting. Use if on road rash. My clavicle and scapula did not need any particular attention.

They filleted my elbow and put in a 4" (10 cm) screw to hold the bone together and wrapped it with wire to keep it in place. I can not fully extend my right arm now and probably never ever in the future. I had physical therapy but that ended when I got strong enough to hoist a beer with my right arm. I had constant pain for about 5 months. I was amazed at how much more I could do when it went away - I guess I got used to it. I was walking 2 days after the operation and I got exercise that way - up to 10 miles per day. I was back on the wind trainer though in 4 weeks and back on the bike in 7 weeks. The joint does hurt a mite when I put weight on it when the arm is extended which means during cycling. Used to be if I did 50 miles, the arm would hurt the rest of the day. Now it stops pretty quickly once I get off and I can ride a century with it. The arm has slowly gotten better over time so I suspect that eventually I will be able to ride completely pain free. And the pain is not bad - it is more like a bit of an ache and I can attenuate that by flexing my arm.

I can't tell from your injury if yours is worse then mine or not. Good luck with it.

Originally posted by mikemets5
My front tire touched his back tire and I went down fast...I guess we were doing about 18-20 mph at the time. Bottom line was a lack of concentration on my part, only for a moment, but obviously enough.

I've touched wheels in a paceline only 2 times, both times however I was able to lean out of it, however needless to say I was scared crapless :p

I notice though, when riding in a 'causual' line, I have to pay more attention to riders around me, due to the greater likelyhood of getting 'drop kicked' when someone gets out of the saddle. :rolleyes:

at least you were not injured worse, and the bike is ok :)