Oh great!

 So.

I'm not racing tomorrow after all.

Very unimpressed.

The tickboxes for the race were being able to have a good crack at going quickly and have a go a beating last year's time, while managing risk on the bike leg.  Not sure I can tick either box after an incident on Friday on the course where a bus went under the main pedestrian bridge from the outer palace grounds into the main athlete transition area, that was over-height and damaged the bridge.  It's the only route through to transition from outside the race and is unusable.

 

 

So the race director has implemented a marshalled mandatory dismount zone on part of the bike course where the bridge crosses the bike course and pedestrians/spectators need to cross the bike course.  All athletes have to slow down, stop, get off their bikes, walk 10m, get back on and carry on around the bike route... 3 times each in the race.  I've seen race footage and it looks bloody awful.  At any given time there could be a good 400 athletes on the bike loop which is about 6.6km long and as the race is started in waves there are cyclists on the course who are on any of the 3 laps... so at any time at the dismount or re-mount line there are 10-15 cyclists in the least stable state of getting on/off/tottering about in cycling shoes.  That, plus the fact that the race attracts a high proportion of first-timers there's a good 75% of the field have never raced before or have certainly never raced where there are a lot of other athletes in close proximity.  I'm not sure what other option the race director had, but there are going to be a lot of athletes turning up to today's and tomorrow's race waves who won't know until they get to the swim briefing.  There's going to be a lot of cross people and perhaps offering to allow people to withdraw and get at least a partial refund would have been a good gesture.

Basically, sod that.  I'm not having someone ride up my backside or stop/wobble/fall off right in front of me and cause me to crash; it's bad enough having that risk at the start and end of the bike leg, but adding in 6 instances of it during the race?  Also, slowing down, stopping, getting off, walking, getting back on and then starting up again on one of the quicker parts of the bike course not once, or twice, but three times during the race will add up to minutes to the overall race time.  Where personal best times are often measured in parts of minutes, that's just no fun any more.  Most people aren't racing the rest of the field, they're racing themselves.  I'd've been doing both.
Someone has taken short videos of the area from today's racing...

Dismount:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-89QyxUB48&feature=youtu.be
Remount:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8u8OR3dGjg&feature=youtu.be

*sigh*

So I got my letter from the Police with my case manager's name and the incident number.  And the next day I got another one, saying "case closed, we're not doing anything".

So there we go.

Despite there being a load of CCTV up and down the street and a gazillion witnesses, that's it.

In the mean time, the guys at Evans are being great still; new forks and handlebars are on the Felt, I just need wheels to arrive now.  Apparently it looks pretty good.

Trying to take it easy

It's not easy to take it easy.

With just over 3 weeks to the first sprint triathlon of the season, I'm finding it really hard to be propped up on cushions on the sofa, not allowed to go to the gym or a bike ride (my commuter is in the workshop at the moment pending a verdict on whether the frame is gone as well as the front forks and wheels).  I really want to be building strength and power still before the taper the week before race and I'm running out of time.  I'm running out of 'mental' too.  I hate hate hate not being able to get out and -do- stuff.  I hate feeling helpless and pathetic and emotional.

Still, the drugs appear to be actually working today, though I still can't sit upright for long without a big cushion behind my shoulders, neck and head.  The swelling in my knees looks like it's going down a bit now and the lump on the top of my right knee is much less egg-shaped now.

I know a lot of people who've been through sports injuries and found it frustrating to rest and recover... any hints and tips for me?

Not very articulate at the moment

I've added a little diagram to try to explain the picture a bit better.  Thing is, the cycle lane on the A24 is almost as wide as a bus lane at that point and cyclists get to go at a fair old whack on it while there's nothing parked in it. As in, it's totally normal to be travelling at 20+kph on that bit of road and not stop at every single side road to check if anyone wants to turn in to it.

It shouldn't be that a cyclist travelling on a main road has to behave differently from other traffic; we shouldn't have to stop at or slow right down at each side road that joins in case someone turns into or out of it onto the main road.  Bicycles are road traffic.  Bicycles have the same rights and the same rules as cars on the road.  It makes me angry when I see cyclists going through red traffic lights because it erodes the cause that all road users have to be treated equally and obey the rules equally.  It makes me angry when motorised vehicle road users think that bicycles (and horses in some cases) have no right to be on the road, should get out of the way of everything else and give way to everyone else and should never be anywhere other than in the gutter.

Right now, I'm too tired to be properly angry.  I need to rest up, treat my neck, shoulders and knees properly and wait to see how my bike is.

Trashed bike (probably) and helmet

On my way in to work this morning, I was about 12 minutes into my ride, maybe 15 and was flying up CS7 alongside the traffic jam of cars.  I was just at the junction of Oldridge Road and Balham High Road with a large van stationary just in front to the right of me, when a car going the other way suddenly appeared across the front of me, turning right into Oldridge Road.  I was doing about 25kph, maybe a bit more; the car was probably doing around 10kph.  I only found out about it when my front wheel was taken out by the front of the car and a second or so later I felt myself land and the back of my head hit the road.

[Yellow box is me on my bicycle travelling North in the massively wide cycle lane.  Purple boxes are stationary cars trying to go North.  Red box is large, stationary van trying to go North.  Blue box is blue car going South, turning right at the same time as I'm passing the side road.]

I screamed.  For the first time in my entire life, I screamed.  Twice.  Maybe three times.  My eyes were shut and I didn't dare open them.  There were people around me asking me to open my eyes, so I did.  I could hear a female voice saying "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.  Is she OK?" over and over.  My knees hurt, my head felt a bit funny and I didn't want to move.  They were all asking me was I OK, then one guy seemed to have some medical training and asked me my name, looked at my eyes, checked my grip, spine, hips and shoulders and then decided it was OK to get me moved.  I was keen to get out of the way of the traffic, but people kept telling me not to worry about it.

My bike was moved for me, I have no idea where it ended up first of all; I think it went over the car.  The car that hit me was behind me, so I must have gone right over the bonnet.  My shoes unclipped totally from the pedals pretty much immediately the impact happened, which is a relief.  With all the adrenaline bubbling about, I told everyone I was fine and totally intended to carry on in to work and that no, I didn't need any of the three ambulances that had been called for me.  No really, I'm fine.  The guy who checked my back and brain were mostly OK advised me to get me bike checked out before riding it again in case the headset was damaged which I thought, mm I'll do that on the way home tonight.

The woman that hit me took me for a cup of tea and I really did intend just to get on my bike and carry on in to work.  As we got up to leave the cafe, I looked down at my right knee and saw two huge lumps on it as well as the graze.  The woman was advising me to go home and have a hot bath, which was sounding more and more inviting by the minute.  My neck was starting to get sore and my jaw hurt as I opened it, so I thought I'll just check my bike in to the bike shop over the road for a check-over and head to a walk-in clinic to get myself checked over.

As I walked my bike to wait for the bike shop to open, I noticed something catching every revolution of the wheels.  So I lifted up the back and spun the back wheel - tiiiiiiiny bit wobbly but not catching on the brakes.  Did the same with the front... not so good.  Bent.  And looking at the right side of the front forks for the first time, I saw that they were broken.  Feeling a bit sick and headachey by this point I decided to go to St. Georges A&E to get properly checked out.

Then the shock finally started to wear off a bit and I was in floods of tears all the way to the hospital.  Snotty and sniffling, tears streaking down my cheeks.  By this point I couldn't turn my head to check for traffic coming in roads to the right of me, so had to turn my whole body to do that.

I locked my bike up outside the hospital and went in to A&E to register.  Only to get totally told off by the triage nurse for not coming in an ambulance, bumped to the front of the queue and told I was being treated as 'trauma' as I -should- have come in an ambulance especially given I went over the bonnet of the car.  I'm terrible.  I don't like making a fuss.  I don't like going to the doctor unless something is pretty much hanging off.  I really need to get over that.  That said, while I was in A & E waiting to be seen by a doctor, I heard a call come in for another accident - 20 minutes away in the ambulance; pedestrian vs. cyclist at 30mph.  Brain bleeding, BP very high, other internal injuries, suspected probably won't survive the ambulance journey.  I don't know if that was the pedestrian or the cyclist, but I'd suspect the pedestrian at that speed.  I didn't find out in the end.

At this point, I felt very lucky.

The doctor came and... long story short, my BP and heart rate were very high (I still had my heart rate monitor on and it didn't drop below 100 even after sitting down for 20 minutes).  Spine, hips, shoulders and brain checked out OK.  Knees and calves just badly bruised, scraped and a bit lumpy.  Neck and jaw minor injuries that would need ice packs for a few days and Ibuprofen to treat.  No work for at least 2 days, no gym or cycling for 2 weeks.  Immediate treatment with diclofenac (and some bread and butter and tea to help make it easier on the stomach) and 2 hours observation before being discharged with a letter sent to my GP detailing the injuries.

Home now and my bike is in for  a safety check with a definite broken front fork, very likely needing replacement front wheel, maybe replacement back wheel (might be fixable, might not).  They're going to check the frame to see if/how much it is bent and the brakes, gears, crank etc.  It's going to be a toss up whether it's a write-off or not, but given the cost of the safety check, replacement front fork, replacement front wheel, replacement or trueing of rear wheel and labour as a definite cost to fix it up safe to ride... it's sailing close to the original cost of the bike anyway.  If it is going to cost loads to fix it up, I'll get the pedals and a few other bits off it and scrap the rest.

Annoyingly, my camera is out of battery and I'm too tired/sore to go find the charger, so here's a list of the injuries:-

• Left knee - bruised on top and both sides, grazed on the top and left side
• Left calf - large bruise 
• Right knee - tangerine-sized lump on the left with a graze, egg-sized lump on top with a graze, large scrape down the right side of the calf behind the knee
• Left side of jaw - sore to open
• Left side of back of neck, very very sore
• Bottom of neck, both sides and spreading out across the back of my shoulders - very very sore
• Right side of back of head - bruised/sore

My bicycle helmet - bent plastic and compressed polystyrene at the middle on the back and cracked polystyrene right through on the back, left side (where it hit the road).  That has to be replaced.  Anybody that ever tells me that people shouldn't wear cycling helmets will get an unpleasant response from me.  I always thought it's better to wear one than not and now... well, given how hard my head hit the road I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be sitting here back at home by now if I hadn't been wearing a helmet.  I'm pretty sure I would have been in an ambulance earlier and not telling people I was fine.  I'm pretty sure I'd have more than a slightly sore bit on the back of my head.

Bicycle - front fork cracked right through (not fixable), front wheel buckled (not fixable), back wheel a bit bent (may be fixable), frame and crank etc. being checked out.

I need to go and find Ibuprofen now.  And sort out more ice for the rest of the day.  Everything aches.  My neck and shoulders hurt a lot unless I slouch in a bad way and I'm feeling washed out and tired.  I've already eaten 4 slices of bread (two in the hospital with butter on and two toasted with Marmite when I got home) 'cause I'm starving hungry but I don't care what I eat today as long as I do eat.   I want to nap, but that's a bad idea unsupervised at the moment, so I'll try not to do that for at least a few more hours if not normal bed-time.

Time to count my blessings and drink tea with kittens cuddled up.

It was bound to happen at some point

I came off my bike this morning.  Or, rather, my bike fell over reasonably slowly with me still on it.  Coming up to some red traffic lights, I was slowing for them and I must have blinked slowly or something because suddenly, while still a bit away from the lights, the bike in front of me was almost stopped and I was still going a lot faster than that.  Yelling "shiiIIIIIII-i-I-i-I-iIIiiit!" I pulled on the brakes and, realising that wasn't going to be enough not to hit the other bike, swerved to the right of it, pulled myself off balance at about 5mph and toppled my bike to one side into the middle of the road with me still on it.  Meanwhile, the lights had changed to green and there was a bus bearing down on me.  The driver was great and rather than being a total twat, like a lot of bus drivers are it seems, he stopped well away from me rather than looming up close, and gave me the time to pick myself and my bike up and get out of the way a bit.  No horn honking, or engine revving at all.

I was a bit wobbly for a few minutes and needed a rest while the pain in my finger started to make itself known and I checked over for any cuts.  No bleeding, just a bit of scuffing on one elbow and a skinned, bruised and swollen finger, which still looks a bit on the deformed side 12 hours later.  My bike time to work was a healthy 42 minutes even including falling off and dusting down for a bit, so no worries there either.

It was bound to happen at some point, and in the grand scheme of things it was pretty innocuous.  Yes, I'm a bit tired after the extra adrenaline rush and following wobbliness and ohboy did I need lots of tea when I got to work, but a bumped finger and lightly scraped elbow is a good get-away.  Oh and my bike seat got knocked out of alignment, which took 15 seconds and a couple of twists with an Allen key to fix.  No harm done at all.

I'd like to thank the bus driver for being a gentleman and Mr TOTKat for dusting me down and making sure I was OK.

Otherwise, today was pretty uneventful so I decided to tack an extra 5km onto the journey home as the weather was nice...

B - MP Total Breakfast with frozen blueberries and skimmed milk
*cycle*
S - greek yogurt with strawberries and Dorset Cereals muesli
S - banana
L - lettuce, sweet pepper, cherry tomatoes, celery, chicken breast and avocado with lemon juice and black pepper
S -Starbucks skinny Caramel Macchiato
S - cottage cheese with Dr Karg crispbread
D - beef chilli with baked beans and a couple of glasses of wine

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2250 2634]
Protein (g)	175.7 (32.9%)
Carbohydrate (g)	214.4 (37.7%)
Fat (g)	44.8 (18.9%)
Fibre (g)	27.8
Fruit & Veg	13.2