AR Ramblings

A winter storm was approaching. The online radar image looked nasty. But I really wanted to ride, so I put on some warm clothes, took a rain jacket, checked my lights, and tried to squeeze in a short night loop at Bent Creek before it hit.

The trails were a little muddier than I had expected. As I was coming down from 5 points, I debated whether to ride the service roads and avoid potentially messy sections of trail, or stick to my original plan of riding Wolf Branch trail. I was really jonesing for some singletrack though, and decided on the trail. A couple of the “improved” sections of this trail have some really slick clay-like surfaces. I’ve ridden them many times before with no problems, but this time would be different.

I’ve never had my bike slide out from under me as quickly as it did on this ride. Normally when I take a spill, and am flying through the air, there is this inner voice that always speaks out. The first thing it says to me is, “Oh Shit!!!”. And most of the time, it follows up with “…this is going to hurt”. Then, after stating the obvious, it works with me to survey the impact zone and figure out how to arrange the body to minimize the damage. I’ve been able to tuck-n-roll through some potentially bone-breaking rock gardens before and come out relatively unscathed. When rolling isn’t an option, I can usually spread the impact over a larger section of my body and avoid more severe, localized damage. I credit this ability to several years of Aikido training when I was younger. I’ve never been able to do anything really cool with that training - like disable a knife wielding crackhead or anything - but I’m pretty sure it has saved my butt a few times while biking.

This time, however, my inner voice didn’t speak up in time. I was riding down the trail at a moderately fast speed, and then suddenly, the next thing I can remember is the sound of my head and helmet slapping the ground and a sensation of sliding. The voice finally spoke as I came to stop. Instead of it’s usual expletive, it just said “Uh, oh”, and then informed me that “Dude, your head really hurts. I hope you’re ok and can get up.”

At first, all I could do was moan and try to mentally survey the damage. Everything hurt. My head felt like it was still vibrating from the impact, and the whole left side of my torso was extremely unhappy about its current situation. After a minute or so, I was able to slowly stand and walk my bike to a flat section of trail. I was feeling kind of woozy and having slight difficulty breathing, so I leaned on my bike and rested my head on the saddle while taking deep breaths. After a few more minutes, I decided to see if I could ride slowly back to the car. My arm and shoulder were really hurting, but I thought it was worth a try.

I slowly mounted the bike, grabbed the bars tightly with my good side, gently gripped it on my left, pushed down on the pedal and got in the saddle. I had barely started moving when I heard two popping noises from my shoulder area and felt some stuff moving around that shouldn’t have been. Immediately, things started to go dim. My ears started ringing loudly and I felt sick to my stomach. I barely managed to lay down on the ground in time. Had I taken a few more seconds, I would have passed out and fallen. As I lay there, barely holding onto consciousness, with my headlamp highlighting the freezing mud that my face was in, I began to think about how cold the ground was. It would not have been a good thing to pass out. Especially with several inches of snow and sleet on the way. I almost started to freak out a little, but the situation seemed a little too familiar. I thought back to several adventure racing experiences and decided that if I did pass out, that the cold weather would probably cause me to shiver and wake me up before it got too serious. A head injury would have changed the situation, of course, but I was pretty sure that it was only the rattling shoulder was causing the dizziness, and the intense stomach pain that was making me feel like I was going to both puke on myself and crap my pants at the same time.

After several more minutes of deep breathing, the ringing subsided and the stomach pains went away. It took me another couple of minutes to slowly stand again and start walking the bike back to my car. I created a makeshift sling by adjusting my pack straps and using them to hold my arm against the body. Sidi shoes aren’t exactly known for their superbly cushioned hiking abilities, however, and the jarring of each step still stung quite a bit.

I made it back to the car relatively easy, and drove home to figure out what to do next. After some food, beer, and a shower, I discovered the urgent care clinic was already closed, and I really wanted to avoid the emergency room. So like a true geek, I consulted doctor Google. Dr. Google wasn’t 100% sure, but together we decided that it sounded like a shoulder separation. There are different grades of separations, depending on how many ligaments are torn, but since my shoulder wasn’t extremely deformed I figured that worst case it was a grade III and that it could wait until the morning.

After several X-rays at urgent care the next morning, they decided that I had…can you guess?…Yes, it looked like an AC joint sprain or tear (separated shoulder), but all they could do is give me a sling and refer me to an orthopedist. I guess I didn’t expect much more than that, but I have to wait six days before an orthopedist will see me! WTH!? Hopefully, the ortho will be able to determine the extent of damage and give some estimation of recovery time. I’ll definitely have to skip Uwharrie and the The Most Horrible Thing Ever, though. That really bums me out, because I was looking forward to both of them.

P.S. One-handed typing is SLOOOOOW! :-)