An accident, and a blessing.
 

Yesterday at 2:00 pm I received the phonecall every parent dreads. "Your son has been in a bicycle accident and an ambulance is taking him to hospital"

Stephen, a professional triathlete, was doing a 50 mile time trial on a long flat section of highway that he has ridden hundreds of times before. Somehow he got off course at an uncontrolled interesection and hit a low concrete barrier.

Amazingly, after crushing the front of his helmet, and fracturing the downtube of his carbon fibre bike, all he received was road rash and two broken ribs. The relief I felt when the CT scan of his head indicated no concussion or other problems was beyond compare.

What I can't figure out is how he can break his bike frame, and still have 2 true wheels. Wonders never cease.

We are two very thankful parents.

glad he is OK..all the best for a speedy recover

Whew! Those ribs are going to hurt like the dickens, but so glad it wasn't any worse.

As someone who got his first TT bike a few weeks ago, I know just how easy it is for that to happen. On my way home from work yesterday, I ran over a branch laying across the bike path. Never saw it until a couple feet before I hit it. I kept thinking how glad I was it wasn't a stroller. And on a long effort, you go into a zone where you are just totally focused on the pedal stroke. My first 40K, I blew past the turnaround, my only thought being "Gee... guy at side and a cone in the middle, must be getting close." TT's are the ultimate "set aside your brain" endeavor.

I'm really glad he is essentially okay. And I've broken a top tube (bike fell off the car rack) and still had true (CF) wheels.

One more note is that an older brother, avid cyclist when we were young, managed to plow into the rear of a parked VW bug, catapulting himself completely over the car. He ended up an engineer, and I'm guessing he did it just to see what speed was needed to accomplish it.

Wow! A narrow escape there. Glad he wasn't hurt any worse. Bikes can be replaced.

Glad he's okay. Sounds like he dodged a bullet.


Hoop strength. I've done the same thing, on a steel bike. I bent the top tube, buckled the downtube, and bent the fork enough that the tire hit the downtube. The frame was trashed thoroughly, but I'm still riding on that wheel.

A 50 mile Time Trial..........enough said.

Glad to hear it was not serious. Kids can scare the he** out of you.

Meh! Worthless helmets. ;)

Glad to hear he made it through ok...

Glad it wasn't more serious. Hope for a quick recovery.

Glad he is okay, and I think the helmet did what it was intended to do, and that is to protect the rider's head.

Glad that he is okay, went through this racing dirt bikes with my son. The helmet did its job and absorbed the energy that was then not transferred to his head. Hope you are okay and breathing normally now.

Bill

Yep......didn't protect his ribs..............:innocent:

Hope the discomfort of the rib injuries is as tolerable as possible. Sounds like things could have been much worse.

I love gallows humor.

Hope your friend's son, skilsaw, has a speedy recovery.

I received that call two years ago. It makes your heart stop for a moment, and the the panic sets in. So glad to hear that the injuries were not worse than they were. You, as you stated, have much to be thankful for.

I did that to my parents, twice. Once while skiing, once on the bike.
So far, my kids have only come home with some scrapes and bruises. And lessons learned, like don't skateboard barefoot.

Glad your son has only minor injuries. Buy him a new helmet, the bike can be on him for not watching where he was going.

+1

Glad to hear that he will mend.

Glad to hear that your son is OK.

The reason carbon fiber can make such light frames is that it allows the designer to put the strength precisely where it needs to be for anticipated riding stresses, while leaving weight off those areas that do not require strength for the anticipated stresses. Crashes are not "anticipated stresses" in this scenario, so the strength that would have saved the frame in that situation just wasn't there.

Glad he is OK. Funny you should mention the bike damage and no wheel damage. See this recent post on another site: http://forums.mtbr.com/passion/frame-fail-797889.html

I am glad that he is going to be OK. As noted above, the broken ribs are going to cause what is called in the medical world as "discomfort" which translated means "lots of pain".

If he crushed the front of his helmet, he had a concussion, and its usually termed MTBI (mild traumatic brain injury) these days. Look at definition in Wikipedia to start. Note "Most concussions cannot be detected with MRI or CT scans." The CT helps to find a bleed, like the seemingly mild head injury that killed Natasha Richardson. If his head was decelerated fast enough to deform helmet, his brain rotated and impacted the inside front of his skull. I had two cracked LAS Squalos and two "concussions" a couple of years ago. Super glad he's OK. He should continue to be watched and evaluated for post crash symptoms. And any additional head trauma in the near future would not be a good thing. I know. Again - extremely glad he's OK.

Glad he's okay. As to the carbon fiber versus wheels, just think about it. There is no wonder to it (yes, I ride cf too).

Good that he is OK

My wife has had a jinx going where something bad has happened on each of her major birthdays. Several years ago, her 50th birthday was coming up, and I had thought that I would beat the jinx by planning a short vacation on Monhegan Island in Maine. We had set up babysitting, and left mid morning to catch the ferry to the island when my cell phone rang, and it was the secretary at my son's school with a message - "Please meet your son at the emergency room" - She didn't know any more than that, so we turned around and went to the hospital, with the dread which you know - for the hour and a half drive.
When we met him there, he had broken a collar bone, demonstrating a dive roll over a picnic table at school.

I am glad to report that the streak was finally broken with an uneventful 60th for my wife....