Comrades

Well, I woke up at 8am today, and set off for my first 60 mile ride at 10am. The first stretch of the ride was down highway 49. I came to the bridge where the shoulders disappear, waited for a gap, and then stood up, shifted into high gear, and started gunning it across...

...at which point, my chain snapped, I fell over onto the bridges concrete railing, and my hand did the braking as I went from 25mph to a halt in about a second. Looking at the blood covered mass attached to my right arm, I proceeded to walk my bike off of the shoulderless bridge with 65mph+ traffic whizzing by.

I went to the hospital, as I wasn't entirely sure if I still had full use of my hand. Luckily, I had no broken bones, and no stitches were necessary because, as my doctor said, "there's not much there to stitch".

A picture of the injury:

http://www.imgur.com/eBz9sR2.jpeg
 
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Hitomi's Tanakas said:
Well, I woke up at 8am today, and set off for my first 60 mile ride at 10am. The first stretch of the ride was down highway 49. I came to the bridge where the shoulders disappear, waited for a gap, and then stood up, shifted into high gear, and started gunning it across...

...at which point, my chain snapped, I fell over onto the bridges concrete railing, and my hand did the braking as I went from 25mph to a halt in about a second. Looking at the blood covered mass attached to my right arm, I proceeded to walk my bike off of the shoulderless bridge with 65mph+ traffic whizzing by.

I went to the hospital, as I wasn't entirely sure if I still had full use of my hand. Luckily, I had no broken bones, and no stitches were necessary because, as my doctor said, "there's not much there to stitch".

A picture of the injury:

http://www.imgur.com/eBz9sR2.jpeg
Click to expand...

I couldn't look!
 
Rana said:
Bloody Mary use to scare the shit out of me. I had the added guilt of being Catholic and not allowed to believe such nonsense. The nuns preached the evil of the Ouija board, too.
Click to expand...

The evil Ouija board, so true! Not to mention fortune tellers, palm readers and anything psychic.
 
Hitomi's Tanakas said:
Well, I woke up at 8am today, and set off for my first 60 mile ride at 10am. The first stretch of the ride was down highway 49. I came to the bridge where the shoulders disappear, waited for a gap, and then stood up, shifted into high gear, and started gunning it across...

...at which point, my chain snapped, I fell over onto the bridges concrete railing, and my hand did the braking as I went from 25mph to a halt in about a second. Looking at the blood covered mass attached to my right arm, I proceeded to walk my bike off of the shoulderless bridge with 65mph+ traffic whizzing by.

I went to the hospital, as I wasn't entirely sure if I still had full use of my hand. Luckily, I had no broken bones, and no stitches were necessary because, as my doctor said, "there's not much there to stitch".

A picture of the injury:

http://www.imgur.com/eBz9sR2.jpeg
Click to expand...

Oh that's pretty nasty-looking. Hope you bandaged it up.
 
That, my friends, is why you don't stand up to pedal. Besides the fact that it's just not efficient (it almost always makes more sense to downshift pushing the pedals is to hard), it's just not very stable. If I'd been sitting down, I could've maintained balance and coasted. When you're standing up, throwing all of your weight onto a single pedal, and suddenly the drive train becomes disconnected, causing said pedal to lose all resistance, you go flying. Especially dumb was the fact that I was pulling off this maneuver to try and speed me through a dangerous place, leaving me vulnerable to losing my balance in exactly the worst place possible. In retrospect, cars behind me will usually just get out of the way if I'm too slow, it's not nearly as dangerous as suddenly falling to the ground in the middle of the road. It's a good thing that I happened to fall right, onto the guardrails and my poor hand, rather than to the left, onto the pavement, splayed out all over the lane on one of Mississippi's busiest highways, and possibly unconscious due to a head injury.
 
Hitomi's Tanakas said:
I was also woken by the crowing of roosters. Oddly enough, I've lived in a rural area for 24 years and never heard a rooster crow.

Ah, late rooster, surely you crow truest of them all.
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That was one of the wierdest thing that happened to me when I was in Manila in the PI. I kept getting woken up each morning by the sound of a rooster crowing while in my hotel room in a city of 10 million people.
 
Capgras said:
I actually developed a complex from doing this as a k id. I literally cannot look into mirrors in the dark anymore. I will always avert my eyes. I don't believe in any of that shit but it stuck with me, I just can't do it, starring into dark mirrors freaks me the fuck out.
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Pussy.
 
Hitomi's Tanakas said:
Well, I biked 40 miles again yesterday...

Am now recovering with sore muscles. I am not ready to go on a serious bike tour. :(
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Yea...if your sore after a 40 mile ride in flat land....then you have a long way to go. Don't sell such an adventure short. It's certainly doable but it takes a lot more training, experience and serious planning then you would think. Youtube a RAAM even and scrutinize the logistic support those riders have. It typically takes those athletes 3 years of serious training and planing to complete that race.

 
Mott the Hoople said:
Yea...if your sore after a 40 mile ride in flat land....then you have a long way to go. Don't sell such an adventure short. It's certainly doable but it takes a lot more training, experience and serious planning then you would think. Youtube a RAAM even and scrutinize the logistic support those riders have. It typically takes those athletes 3 years of serious training and planing to complete that race.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but that's a race. You can't compare that to casual touring, where your free to ride at whatever pace you want. They do 3k miles in 10 days, I'm planning on 3k miles (to and back from where I am) in about a month. On the last RAAM, the winner did 2993 miles in 7 days and 22 hours - about 374 miles a day! My goal of 70 miles a day is 1/5 of that. Plenty of people do routes that long or longer at that kind of non-masochistic pace, there's no special skill or especially arduous training schedule required. And RAAM participants need the support team because they don't have time to take shopping detours, they're biking all of their time they're not sleeping. With a casual tour, by contrast, my biggest logistical worry is out west where there's a derth of inhabited areas with supermarkets and shopping centers, which I'll have to take into account when planning my route beforehand. I'll just have to be sure I pass through as many as possible, and pack up extra when I know it's going to be a few days.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
That was one of the wierdest thing that happened to me when I was in Manila in the PI. I kept getting woken up each morning by the sound of a rooster crowing while in my hotel room in a city of 10 million people.
Click to expand...

He was probably trying to get you to return his hen, undamaged. :)
 
Comrades, I once more set out on the 60 mile route today. The goddamn bike chain fell off TWICE, and the second time it broke a spoke on my back tire, leaving me walking home. I fear I am not in favor with the Gods. At this rate, I'm never going to be on my bike again. I fear my riding days are over, lest I can fix this bike in the next week, before losing all hope. Truly, these are dark days indeed.
 
The back tires right nut fell off sometime. I would assume that this has been the cause of all of the trouble I've been experiencing. Well, that sucks.

I was mistaken, BTW, ALL of the right side spokes on my back tire were damaged/destroyed. Well, at least my hand is didn't go gangrene! At least I'm not dead! Fuck you, unfaithful right nut, whatever you are!
 
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