I have been really enjoying bike commuting this year 11 miles each way, two times a week. 7 miles of my route is on a concrete, unlit bike path that follows a creek greenbelt. I have been using a Philips LED bike light and have been very happy with how well I can see with it in the dark. My morning rides start at 6am and were in pretty much in complete darkness before the time change. I ride a road bike with 25mm tires.

Well, last week we got about 3 inches of rain at my house one night. That's a lot of rain for here, as we're usually in a drought. My ride into work two days after the rain did not go well. A few miles into my commute, I rode into a portion of the path that was covered in 2-3 inches of water. I didn't see it at all until I was in it, maybe because the water was the same color as the path. But as soon as I was into the water, my bike COMPLETELY lost traction and I went down FAST and HARD. I didn't have any time to react, it happened so fast. My back wheel came around to the left and I fell on my right hip. The water must have been covering quite a bit of mud as well. My front tire is just caked in the stuff.

I hurt myself pretty badly. I was about 1/2 mile from a trailhead where my wife could pick me up and I was barely able to walk there with the aid of my bike. I spent 4 nights in the hospital after they decided I broke my pelvis in 4 places.

So I'm trying to decide where to go from here. Was this just a fluke accident, or was it preventable? I'll have a while to think about it, as I think it will take me a while to heal. I've pretty much decided to not ride on that greenbelt path in the dark anymore, even with a great headlight. The fact that I was inaccessible by car has me pretty spooked. But I'm not happy about that since my alternate route on city streets is not nearly as convenient and goes on several roads that have traffic that I am not comfortable with. Can anyone think of something I obviously should be doing differently? Looking back on it, riding 24 hours after a heavy rain, through a creek greenbelt that could be flooded, in the dark was not a good idea, but is that just hindsight speaking? Were my tires the problem? Should I be riding on significantly wider tires? Or knobby tires? Would that have helped?

I'm not an inexperienced cyclist, although I don't have as many miles under my belt as some of you. I've ridden 1000+ miles this year and 3500+ since I started a few years ago. What do you guys think? Thanks.

Alan