A year gone by...

After checking out everyone's awesome blog posts, I realized I stopped writing my own for the better part of a year. Clearly something had happened.

Not just one "something" but many somethings. A few days before that great club extravaganza with DaniJay and my good friend Damian, I rode a circuit race that almost put an end to my life. Having been off the front twice already, I was being marked when the break that stuck took off. I was already fairly tired as was most of the remaining pack. The course was pretty much an out and back 2-mile loop with roundabouts at each end. I've been in crits where it's just out-and-back and everyone can deal with 180 deg turns no problem. However when you throw roundabouts in the mix there is bound to be trouble.

Sure enough, coming out of a turn, everyone shifted over (echelons ina crit? come on!) and I was pushed from my inside and caught a teammate's calf with my front wheel. This at high rate of speed. I flipped over in mid-air and landed helmet first on the ground with my bike in the air. I bounced off my head and then hit the ground again with the shattering helmet and slid across pavement as my legs and bike finally hit the ground. I stopped barely a couple of inches from the curb which would have been instant death due to my exposed head. Having been in my fair share of crits my first instinct was to see if my bike was ok and if I could rejoin. A few spectators tried to move me but I had intense pain in my right elbow. Later I found out I had a radial head fracture, similar to one I sustained a few years before. No free lap.

After that injury I was never quite the same. The last week of my Europe adventure was spent in Paris visiting with friends and that's where I found I had nerve damage in my lower left leg. Basically I had managed to pinch nerves that help fire the calf and also bend the ankle. Coming back to the US, I felt more like a cripple than a Euro stage racer. Cycling for me was done.