General Cycling Discussion - How does a crash effect your cycling.?

Here I go again,harping about crashing, getting hurt, and being withdrawn from our cycling addiction. I am so addicted to cycling I can't stop needing it, every time I scream over my wrenched shoulder and thinking about when again I will be on the bike.( I have a very low tolerance for pain).
But my point- I do not know how, when I start up cycling again- how I will approach speed.? Is speed worth missing out on future rides, just because once in awhile it feels good?
I do not understand how my crash occurred. I saw nothing in the road and the turning into the turn seemed smooth. Maybe I was wrong, and going faster than I thought? There was a piece of wood in the road, I'm pretty darn sure, I had steered about it. ?
Going slower, then I would now be sure that had I missed it. Think I was going slow.? If you look up from the road, something
will be in the road.!. Getting into a race mode, is not worth missing four months of riding. Does this make sense.?
Taking me away from Bike touring and scuba diving- that is taking about 60% of my being away. Just complaining. See how confident I will be when I get back at my cycling addiction.

Originally posted by cyclezealot
Here I go again,harping about crashing, getting hurt, and being withdrawn from our cycling addiction. I am so addicted to cycling I can't stop needing it, every time I scream over my wrenched shoulder and thinking about when again I will be on the bike.( I have a very low tolerance for pain).



Its a fact of sport that old injuries do more harm to your confidence than your body. You just have to learn how to work past it. Maybe you need baby steps or maybe you need to attack it. Either way, do you really want to let that spot where you injured yourself beat you?



But my point- I do not know how, when I start up cycling again- how I will approach speed.? Is speed worth missing out on future rides, just because once in awhile it feels good?


Thats a personal thing. some people need the speed of a good dh run. Going as fast as a car (sometimes faster) on a dh section with only your bike and armour is a rush. Is It worth it? If it feels good, makes you warm and fuzzy, gets you into the 'zone' (hopefully you know what I mean by that) then I think it is worth it. Northing feels better than that flow which you can only acheive doing something your enjoy.

Speed is not my thing, I go fairly fast but I prefer the hard work of technical riding. While I still suck (fairly new to riding compared to most out here) I enjoy the shore style riding which is a constant learning experience and involves many different disciplines from within cycling. :) My thing ;)

Best of luck with the recovery of your confidence as I know your body will end up fine.

I'm sure you'll be somewhat apprehensive when you get back, but that's only natural considering the severity of your crash. Having never had a really BAD crash, I'm not an authority on the subject. However, the old saying about getting back up on the horse after you've been bucked off has been proven true to me time after time throughout my life in other situations. Don't worry about taking it slowly when you get back to cycling. You're not wimping out and you'll be back to your old form and speed when it feels comfortable for you to do so. I'm betting that it won't take very long! Good luck.

Forget about going fast if you have a wife and kids. Today at Bike New York, I saw several fast rodies getting loaded into emergency vehicles with bad cases of road rash and broken bones. It wasn't even a technical course but things can happan real fast when speed comes into the equation.

As you get older, it takes you longer to recover from these crashes and the long term damage may not show up for years. Seriously. It's time to put it in cruise control and just enjoy the ride.

When I crashed last May, I was real messed up and ended up being off the bike for a month. Because of this I was dying to get back on the bike. However, if I could of been back on the bike the next day, things may have been diffrent.

After my crash I was a bit more careful in the peleton in not getting stuck in the middle of the group and always leaving a way out. Now though I am back to not worrying about it.

An interesting side effect of my crash was that I could no longer climb well at all. I know it was a mental thing because I was more fit then I had ever been in my entire life at the end of my season, but I still couldn't climb half as good as I did when I was unfit before my crash. Thankfully I found my legs the week before superweek. Just my experience with a crash.

-Matt-