Last Monday signified the start of a long time off the bike for me.
The last Short Track Mountain Bike race of the season, as last year; the last race is well wicked, at the end of the night a planned team relay, podium prices and general mayhem.
My night on the other hand got cut a tad short, in the warm up rides I managed to crash hard, land all my weight on my right shoulder and send myself to the Hospital Emergency Room for x-rays. Thanks to my friend Joel and his onhand trusty Subaru, I made it to the emergency room in one piece and very quickly. After the First Aiders at the race had looked at me, it was almost certain that I had broken a bone in my shoulder, x-rays showed no breaks. Intense pain and lack of motion in particular areas of my shoulder , lead to only one thing, rotator cuff damage.
With a good prescription for Vicodin and paracetamol I was sent home, arm in sling and an appointment for a doc visit in a few weeks to evaluate the damage after all the inflammation goes down. If all goes well, no surgery will be needed, if the lack of motion and tears are deemed bad enough, I may be under the knife in a few weeks.
At the end of the day it will be 4-6 weeks before I can ride my bike outside, if all goes good it will be 3 weeks till I can ride inside on a stationary trainer, where I do not have to put any force on my arm/ shoulder.
Needless to say, the bike is pretty buggered up, bent brake lever and two pretty much well destroyed wheels.
oh well...
high speed crash on dirt, could have been much worse, high speed crash on concrete for example !
