Ride 38 of 50 – Coffee in Stratford and a crash

For ride #38, my plan was to enjoy a nice late summer road ride with Tim K. and his friend Dave D. (Both of whom were on my 200km ride earlier this summer).

I left my house at 7:30am to meet at Tim’s for our 8am start. The ride there was about 13km and chilly and I started with arm warmers (which I quickly shed once I got to Tim’s). After a last-minute wheel change by Tim, we headed west towards Stratford.

The ride was beautiful. The sky was perfectly clear and the temperature was rising. We had a light tail wind – just enough to make us feel like we were fast – and we arrived at Balzac’s in Stratford at about 9:45am. Balzac’s is a regular destination for cyclists in my area. It’s a good distance for a coffee/refreshment stop on a 100km ride. We had coffee and snacks while sitting on the patio and chatting.

By 10:30 we were back on the road for the ride home. Although our pace wasn’t fast, I could feel it in my legs. I took a couple of turns at the front but for the most part, my  view looked like this:

We made good time coming home until St. Agatha when I hit a brick. No, not the wall but a brick. Cruising down a hill in the bike lane with Dave and Tim ahead of me, I had a momentary lapse of awareness and my bike hit this brick in the bike lane at about 30-35 km/h:

I hit it straight on and it immediately threw me and my bike into the air, out of the bike lane and into the car lane. I had no control of the bike and landed hard on the pavement. As I took a few moments to assess my pain, Tim and Dave, who had heard the crash, came back to help. I felt pain just about everywhere but managed to sit up and ease off the road. Tim called an ambulance then my wife. A kind stranger had stopped after seeing my crash and had a first aid kid so I was able to clean some of the blood from my hands and face.

The ambulance arrived quickly and assessed me and cleaned my wounds. During all this I noticed on my new garmin watch that the crash occurred at the 97 km mark of our ride. I noted to Tim that we were so close to 100km. He laughed and said, “… And that’s when I knew he was ok”.

My wife then showed up and by then I figured I didn’t need to go to the hospital so I went home where I’ve been resting since.

I’ll spare readers any selfies of my wounds but I will share this “after” shot of my riding glasses:

I counted at least 16 different locations on my body with road rash. And maybe a slight concussion. I think I’m singlehanded keeping the bandaid companies in business this week.

Thanks Tim and Dave for the ride and more importantly the support post-crash, Balzac’s for the fine coffee, the EMS guys for the first aid and the friendly passerby with the first aid kit. Oh and Mcphail’s cycle who also pulled in as we were driving home. They offered to take my bike if we needed help.

One final disclaimer… This is my first blog entry from my phone and I didn’t proof read this. Thanks!