Saturday morning I was up before the sun to complete my Rapha Rising Challenge. A half hour in I was descending a suburban road in Ivins, 350 N 100 W to be exact. I was probably going about 22-25 mph when I feel what I originally think is a spider web on my face. I quickly realize that it is not breaking, in fact it is getting tighter and stronger and pushing me to my left.
In a split second I am in full panic because I know this isn't going to end well. Apparently some delinquents had stretched some fly fishing line diagonally across the intersection from stop sign to stop sign.
The line was stretched across my face, neck and shoulders, when the line reached the end of its give I was thrown to ground landing hard on my left side. My bike was pitched down the road sparking as the skewer bit into the road.
I hit my head hard and slid far enough to leave large patches of my dermis on the roadway. As I sat up I was in an absolute fury, if the perpetrators had been on hand things could have got ugly. My left arm, shoulder and hip were causing serious agony so I spent a few minutes sitting in the middle of the road to regain my composure.
I then collected my bike and my phone which had fallen out of my pocket and proceeded to document the egregious event.
Line on the roadway.
Close up at the stop sign, you can see they wrapped it quite a few times.
In my adrenalin fueled stupor, I figured I could just continue on my merry way. I had some vertical miles to get done. I made it about 5 more miles before the pain of the wind on my road rash and my hip forced me home.
I limped in and had a daughter document the corporeal damage.
Notice the ripped bibs.
This is my mad face. I am so angry in this picture I am kind of ashamed of myself.
I called the cops and filed a police report, they were shocked that something like this could happen in their sleepy little burg. He took his own fotos and headed up to look at the accident location.
I went in to the most jaw droppingly painful shower of my life. I scrubbed the wounds as clean as I could without passing out, put myself in bed and tried not to move.
The two representatives from Ivin's finest called me two hours later. They had caught the 3 juveniles responsible for my afflictions. The boys in blue were very proud of themselves that they had tracked footprints left on site to a home 3 blocks away. It was probably the most fun they have had all year. I believe they also had a long talk with the boys and their parents.
Right here I would like to be clear that I was once a young lad with barely functioning decision making capabilities. I have done plenty of really stupid things in my day, thankfully very few of them ended up in injury or the fuzz speaking with my parents.
It's Sunday afternoon now and my wounds are lovingly swaddled in Tegaderm, thanks for the heads up on that product JLC. But literally every major muscle group on my body is in pain.
I am shocked, I did not expect this, I have crashed, fallen, broken bones, blown knees, received stitches and concussions, separated shoulders and dislocated my jaw, I have actually been hit by a car and nothing, and I mean nothing has ever given me this all over body pain.
Could it be that I am, dare I say it..... old?
I will try to assuage my pain with some new bibs and saddle courtesy of the perpetrators parents. I will also be taking the bike into the shop to be sure nothing else is damaged, carbon fiber can be temperamental. I was also just thinking that what I really need to work out the soreness is a good bike ride. The sickness continues to run deep.
I will try to assuage my pain with some new bibs and saddle courtesy of the perpetrators parents. I will also be taking the bike into the shop to be sure nothing else is damaged, carbon fiber can be temperamental. I was also just thinking that what I really need to work out the soreness is a good bike ride. The sickness continues to run deep.
