Below is a picture of my bike that I sent to Carla as I was at the turn around and decided to head back down the mountain. My text read "...1st official ride...Golden CO...it's hard and dangerous.XO" Realizing that the trails were challenging I took it slow back down the switchbacks. At about 1.5 miles out I was on a sparsely rocky trail with several undulations and I hit a rock on a down hill and flipped my bike and landed on my right shoulder/should blade, as seen in the pic below. I hit with a lot of force and my body absorbed the initial impact with my head snapping to the side hitting the ground, around the area of my temple.
With the wind knocked out of me and my ears ringing all I could think was what a dumb ass I was to be out on the trails by myself and without a helmet. As I laid on my back trying to get oxygen back into my lungs I felt the side of my head to make certain that I wasn't bleeding....fortunately I wasn't.
After a few minutes a guy on a bike came upon me and asked if I was ok and I told him no that I had taken a pretty hard fall and thought that I had broke my shoulder. He helped me to my feet and I gathered my thoughts and went through my birthday and the days events in my head to see how bad my head injury was, again fortunately just a hard knock on the head. He sat there with me for a few minutes when a hiker walked down the trail and we were able to have her walk my bike back to the trail head which was about 1.25 miles from where I had crashed. I made it back to the trailhead/parking lot and a few guys helped put my bike in the car and I drove myself to Denver General ER.
I entered the ER with all of my bike gear on, my face still half dirt from the fall and my right arm being supported by my left as I approached the clerk. The guy at the desk said, "...looks like you went over the handle bars..." a common occurrence in mountain biking I have come to find out. A nurse immediately took me into a room took my vitals and got me checked in and jammed an IV into my arm....no waiting in the waiting room tonight at the ER. Instead I was in the ER side room in a bed from about 9PM till 5AM the following morning. After a series of xrays and CT scans, along with several doses of morphine it was determined that I had a 2 degree separation of my right shoulder, posterior 2 and 3 ribs fractured along with my scapula.
I was actually just happy to be at the ER and getting diagnosed so I could assess my go forward plans with training for Leadville. Obviously very frustrated with the outcome of my first ride on real trails but left with great respect for the bike and trails. I have to say that I am reassessing the whole mountain bike aspect of the Leadville 100 race series and think that I'm going to just simply focus on the run, which is hard enough.
In a bunch of pain right now but optimistic that I will get healed up well enough to start back my training on the treadmill and a stationary bike within the next week.....as they say...time will tell...shit smells...and water seeks its own level.
This only reminds me of our theme song from the Running of the Bulls when I turned 40......"I get get knocked down but I get up again....you're never gonna keep me down...!!!!
Cheers!
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