ColorChange

OK, here is what happened.

I do a regular Saturday morning club ride. It is normally fairly mild for the first 17 miles to a stop point. Typical 19 mph avg. speed. The remaining 33 miles tend to be pretty spicy with a 21 to 23 mph avg. speed and more hills.

On the fateful day, for some reason, we were slow. At one point on the first leg, I was at the front with the ride leader and we bumped it up to 26 mph and a bunch of people threw a fit so we slowed down and I stayed near the front trying to get some work in.

After the break we normally drop the hammer and split the group. I was feeling strong and looking forward to it. We did this for a while but then, we ended up doing pace line practice ... at around 19 mph. This got very frustrating for me.

When we finally finished that, we started to ride harder again but there were slower people in the lead group that normally would have been dropped and the pace line pace was varying considerable as we switched from a faster rider to a slower rider and especially as the hills came into play.

Then, as we are climbing the end of Tower hill, the pace really drops off again. I can't take it and decide I'm going to "stretch my legs". Little did I know I would in fact be stretching me shoulder. So, I hop up with a few big pedal strokes, look up and pull left ... and see a rider rotating back through the pace line ... and I'm heading right for him.

I thought, OK, I'll just reach forward and give him a little push on the saddle and clear my wheel. Unfortunately I forgot Newton's third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When I give him a shove, my bike instantly tips, I clip his rear wheel, and I'm in serious trouble.

I decide my best bet is to dive for the ditch. I can remember hitting my helmet and shoulder I thought on the gravel but no scratches must mean that I just cleared it. I end up in the ditch, detached from my bike, and stand up. I then realize something is wrong, I'm woozy and sit down. I check out my left side and looks OK. I check the right side and my shoulder is about 3" below the right. The ground is level, ... this can't be good. I then see a 1/2" protrusion under my skin and know what happened.

I announce I think I broke my collarbone; a few guys take a quick look, go "ohh" and turn away. Blech. Now I see I took two other guys out. Guilt on top of pain. One is up and walking around with pretty bad road rash on his arm. The other guy is still lying in the street. He slowly gets up and seams scraped but OK.

After a call to my wife, I tell the guys to take off and they finish the ride. A friend stays with me for the 40 minutes until my wife gets there and off to the ER we go. After the first bump I plead with her (in a firm tone through clenched teeth) to please drive as smoothly as humanly possible.

At the ER, they ask how bad is the pain? I say 3-4 if I don’t move, and 8-9 if I do. The triage nurse takes me back to put a sling and wrap on, and every time he tries to move my arm, the grunt and lack of breathing for 10 seconds from me indicates to him that I need some pain meds. They didn’t help. Some darvocet derivative and I should have asked for codeine. Anyway, get a sling, wrap and wait. Get an x-ray and wait some more. Finally see a doc who says yep, it’s broken. He writes me a stronger prescription and says see ya. ??? I say don’t you need to “set the bone?” He says nope, it heals on its own. ??? OK, I head home. Ice 20 minutes on 20 minutes off, and 3 advil every six hours for a few days.

After the first day, the bone was halfway back. After the second day, it was roughly in line. What the heck is that all about? When you move, you can feel the bone halves scraping against each other, it makes clicking like noise and hurts like a Mo. So the secret appears to be to isolate the shoulder in roughly the proper alignment and I think I have done that.

Minimum 4 weeks off the bike. I hope to be on an exercycle before the end of the week. I apologized am covering all the costs for the guys I hurt. They have been gracious but I still feel bad. I will not do this again. So moral to the story … don’t get frustrated and something stupid!

Lame picture but the lump is almost gone and bruising is left. My bike appears unscathed but I can’t fully inspect yet.



CyLowe suggested my new avatar, CollarChange.

Scummer

That's the reason you should race crits. Much less danger there and higher speed
We did have a crash yesterday during the Tuesday nighter as well. And I was right next to the guy who somehow tried to come into the middle and the guy left to me somewhat swerved it seems and they crossed wheels. All I can hear is "****.. Ohhh ****, ****, ****" But he managed to fall into the grass and got away without any broken bones.

recursive

They gave me a "figure 8 brace" to keep my shoulder in roughly the write position. That basically worked. There's still an awesome lump in it though.

If you're hearing grinding and clicking, that's just nature's way of telling you not to do that.