Skankingbiker

Here's the deal. I organzied a charity bike team at my office. It took a ton of effort and convincing/begging management. The ride is this weekend and I am signed up for a 50 mile route (which I normally would have no problem with at all).

Last weekend, while out on a ride, I had a near miss with an oncoming truck that cut a corner short. Long story short, I swerved, hit some gravel, and went down. I had some nice gravel chunks imbedded under the skin of my knee and pretty severe road rash on my leg and forarm. Accident happened 20 miles out, and I rode 20 miles back in a bloddy mess. Spent 4 hours at urgent care when I got home.

Doc removed the stones, cleaned the wounds, and said the gravel was just under the skin and did not tear any joint tissues--although it was imbedded pretty good. I got stiches and patched up. I have been cleaning/bandaging and icing the wounds all week as directed. I went for a "test ride" last night on my low-geared singlespeed to see how my leg was doing and get the blood flowing. My knee was very sore afterwards and swollen, but I was able to hammer on the pedals without any acute pain. Pain is located under the knee where the stones were removed and where I had the stiches, but the whole knee seems "full" and stiff. My forearm/elbow also hurt when pulling on the handlebars...feels like they are bruised pretty good.

So the million dollar question is if I should ride tommorrow. The doc at urgent care said he didn't see any reason why not when I asked last weekend. What concerns me the most is the knee swelling/pain. As I said, I did not experience any internal acute pain when peddaling....just a general soreness. It didn't start to hurt/swell until I got off the bike. The only acute pain seemed to be in the surface area where the stiches are.

Should I HTFU and ride through it; or back out of the ride. I have been looking forward to this ride all year. It is really fun and ha ssome great hills and beatuiful scenery.--but I don;t want to cause furthe rinjury and ruin the rest of the season. Earliest I can get in to see a doc is monday.

Thoughts????

Seanholio

If a 50 would normally not be a problem at all, consider this a challenge. Start out easy, keep the blood flowing, and if you have a multi-speed bike, ride that to give yourself the ability to avoid mashing. Keep the pace down a little and listen to your body.