Originally Posted by khutch

Five weeks ago I crashed my bike breaking four ribs, puncturing a lung, and getting a concussion too in spite of the helmet. One of the residual effects of the concussion is total amnesia of the event. I remember eating lunch in a local restaurant with my wife, I remember waking up in the ICU of the hospital late that night, I remember nothing in between. The accident happened as I turned for home at the end of a ride off the busy street that runs past our neighborhood and we know that only because that is where I was found and the time I was found indicates that it would have been at the end of the ride. The pain was bad enough, though after five weeks I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, pain-wise. Having absolutely no idea how or why I crashed is worse, it is maddening and a little frightening. The bike is undamaged except for some bent rims where I apparently went over the curb of my street in the middle of the turn. The local shop was able to true the wheels again with so little effort that they did not even charge me for the labor. Evidently I was not struck by a car outright or the bike would have been as heavily damaged as I was. Did a car brush me as it passed while making the same turn? Did a car pull out in front of me as I was turning, forcing me to evade it and lose control? Did I do something stupid all on my own? I don't know and it does not seem that I will ever know.

So, all I can do is to try to be more careful about everthing I do on a bike since I would really rather not repeat this experience. I never used lights in the daytime before, I will have them flashing from now on! I suppose not on the bike path, but on regular streets and roads for sure.

Ken