Um, call out that stick in the road would you???

Out for a little spin with the local group here in Chapel Hill yesterday, when someone forgot to call out an obstacle in the road. As we all know, this is what you're supposed to do when you're riding in a group of more than say, oh, one person. Someone didn't get the memo, because I ran right over that bad boy at around 30 MPH and went down like a pile o' bricks. I'm not going to name names about the person who failed to point this road debris out and all, but you know who you are (tall guy riding a Cannondale with a sleeveless jersey, and I would call you out by name, but I don't know what your name is).

Now I've gone down before, but not at this high of a speed, and haven't had these results before. As I was sliding on the pavement left shoulder to the proverbial grindstone all I could think about was how much of my skin was now being ripped from my arm and my leg. It was a long ass slide I can guarantee you that. There were several good things about this fall, and they were, in no particular order:

1. My bike was rideable post dumpage. I rode it home under escort from Curtis and several others. Thanks!
2. My bike is not too badly damaged. Some bar tape, and some more dents on the shifters. Wheels, straight and true.
3. Only one other person went down with me, and she rode away with a bruise and a small raspberry on her shoulder. Nothing.
4. I didn't break anything on my person.

So overall even though this fall sucks, it could have been a lot worse. Several motorists stopped to see if they could assist, that was nice to see. One guy on the ride went back to get his car since he lived close by to where it happened, just in case I needed a lift home, that was nice as well.

The nicest part was the SO coming over to help me scrub out the wounds whilst I laid in the tub soaking the road rashed skin. Big ups to her for doing that. Let me tell you folks, when you find a woman who will come and scrub out your wounds while you lay cringing in a tub of water, that's a keeper right there. Well, the SO is a keeper for a lot of other reasons as well, but this was just another little feather in her cap for me. I would have gotten the gravel and asphalt out on my own, but some was deep in the elbow that I went down on, so, she helped out very nicely with that, and got me something to eat, and bought me a shit-ton of medical supplies, and so on and so forth. She rocked the house yesterday.

And now without further adieu, I bring you the pictures that I know you're all waiting for. Carnage baby, carnage...

This first little beauty is the left leg which bore the brunt of the fall I believe, well, after my elbow and all, which the swelling has gone down on thankfully. Check out the cheese grater action going on below the knee though. This is fabulous, and should drive anyone away from riding bikes if they haven't been driven away already. Awesome isn't it? I thought so. How could I NOT take pictures of this stuff, I'm weird like that.

Picture number 2 coming at you. This is of the elbow area before jumping into the bathtub to get rub-a-dub-dub clean. There was a big old chunk of flesh hanging off of this one that I had to cut off later with a pair of scissors. Well, that the SO cut off with a pair of scissors. She almost lost the old lunch on that one she said. Thanks again though. This would had the most asphalt in it, and the scrubbing had to be done. I had to have her do it in several different sections. Like scrub for 30 seconds, soak for 2 minutes, scrub for 30 seconds, soak for 10 minutes. You get the picture.

Third shot, left hand. I forgot to put on my damn gloves before heading out for the group ride, and of course I pick the day I forgot said damn gloves to hit the deck. And hence, the large amounts of missing flesh on my palms. This makes life a little more difficult than you'd like to think, since now, if you grab something, you leave a bloody imprint on whatever it is you're grabbing, and also, with the exposed nerves and such from the wound, it tends to hurt. It makes it really hard to grab a beer bottle after something like this has happened, but somehow damn it I managed to get that done. I know, I'm a freakin' trooper and a half.

And of course the most difficult picture to look at. The trashed new watch. Damn it all. If you've read some of my prior entries about the rigamarole that I had go through to get this watch, you'd understand my disappointment at it being wrecked. OK, not completely wrecked as it still works, but it's not sleak and stealth anymore. It's all ground down and scratched. Ah hell... I can't keep nothing nice.

Of course since I had lost a lot of skin, there is a certain amount of care to be taken of these things, so I called the man who has hit the pavement almost as many times as Phil Wikoff, and that would be Chad Gibson. Thanks for the information mo-fo on road rash care. It is much appreciated of course. Good stuff. Just had to thrown a shout out to him for that bit o' information.

Anyway, this throws a serious damper on my plans to start my off season training this week. I guess I'm going to have to put that off a little bit now until I can heal enough to say, grab the bars while riding, and or not hurt when I pedal. The best plans, laid to waste. I might as well have salted the Earth where I stood. Or better yet, I should not have jinxed myself by talking to various people about said plan to start training fairly hardcore again this week. At least I have Ford coming in tomorrow and Tuesday to visit our new propshaft cell, and I can gross them out, and maybe draw some sympathy from them with the wounds that no doubt will be on display after I get the Tegaderm on there this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Oh, another thing, trying to sleep while this stuff is fresh and kind of tingley and or itchy because there is some healing going on, oh, and not to mention the immense pain of it all, trying to sleep is something that just didn't happen for me last night. Well, I shouldn't say didn't happen at all, but it did come in starts and fits, meaning, sleep for about 20 minutes, something hurts in leg, wake up, re-adjust bandages, fall asleep again for 15 minutes, repeat the process. It blows.

I hate falling off of my bike.