The Luckiest Unluckiness
What it's like to be an injured runner and measuring the hardness of a Subaru Impreza
1 month ago, I was in Europe just coming off a race - The Jura Bike Marathon - that ended in an embarrassingly stupid crash on pavement 300 meters from the finish after 43 miles of slick mud. I landed on my chin, thought I had a concussion based on symptoms, and woke up the next day to realize that the minor pain I had had in my lower leg for a few days prior, which had become worse after the race, was tendonitis. It was both frustrating but also somewhat comical that the injury I went to bed fearing was totally irrelevant, and what I really should have worried about was something else: an injury usually left to runners.
I got lucky with that injury. I took a week off and missed a race, which was very disappointing, but so far, my leg seems to have gotten back to normal. The real test will come next week in my first race.
You could say luck, in both the positive and negative sense, has been the theme of the last month.
I was able to get back to training, felt strong, and was excited for my next race, the Oregon Trail Gravel Stage Race. I decided to go on the Saturday group ride as part of my training. It has left at 10:15 AM from Switchback Coffee Roasters for as long as I have been here, and based on talking with someone who has been here for 20+ years, for far longer. I showed up at 10:10 after doing some riding beforehand.
Zero people.
A couple of minutes before departure, one other guy showed up. We both commented that maybe the lack of riders was due to the MTB stage race in town that weekend along with the hecticness of summer schedules. We just got unlucky that it would be us two suffering alone, or so we thought. We rolled out at 10:15, chatting casually and getting to know each other. Once we hit the “full gas” section as we turned right onto Marksheffel Road, I started riding hard. The group ride is never as good with two people. There are inevitably differences in level, and it’s more just a hard sweet spot effort rather than a proper group ride with attacks to chase down, but I wanted to get what I could out of it.
We didn’t get far.
To backtrack slightly, the group ride route sucks. I’m sure it was great 20 years ago, but now, it starts on a 4-lane divided road with numerous stop lights, and the “full gas section” begins on another 4-lane road on a 30+ MPH pedaling descent. Safety NOT first.
About 1/2 mile after the right turn onto Marksheffel Road, the route goes by Peterson Space Force Base’s East Gate. The road turns from 4 lanes (2 on each side), two 3 lanes in our direction (2 (turn lanes and one regular lane) and one on the other, and then the entire road turns into a two-lane design just after the intersection. As we ripped down the 3% grade, the light turned yellow. With just 30 feet left to the intersection, we rolled it. You can’t go from over 30 MPH to zero with someone on your wheel in that distance, and given the design on the road and the length of the yellow light, we had ample time to make it through.
As it turned out, that was the last of our concerns. As we entered the intersection, the car next to us began to turn. I had nowhere to go and felt myself hit it, and after what felt like 30 seconds, flipped over my bars and landed hard on the pavement. Momentary shock and immediate frustration and pain hit me. It’s incredible - and lucky (I didn’t hit my head) that my memory is so clear from the event that I recall beginning to feel this anger before I had his the ground. My lucky streak in Colorado Springs had come to an end. It was not a matter of if but when, given the roads around here.
On that day, I got unlucky and lucky. Clearly, the unluckiness was the accident, but both the other rider and I walked away from the crash with minor injuries and a few broken bike parts. Given we were going 33 MPH at the time, there is no other explanation but luck for the fact that neither of us hit our heads or had to go to the hospital. Somehow, my own bike was totally fine.
The unluckiness we felt in being the only two riders on the group ride ended up being exactly the opposite. Had it been the normal 20+ people on the ride, I wouldn’t be writing about this on a random Substack, and you would probably be hearing about it on the news. As it turns out, a local rider decided to unilaterally change the time of the group ride (and then proceeded to do the same a week later). The catch with that is that there is no ride leader, and no central coordination of this ride. It just exists. It happens at a set time, place, and route, and the only way to find out is to ask a friend or shop. No matter what, someone on the ride knows the route and how the format works, so it exists in perpetuity. Well, it does until someone decides to be the ride czar and change it. The problem with that is the only way to know is to go every weekend or be one of his friends, and when he changes it again, the only way to know that is to also know the previous time change so you show up at the right time and are in the group when he says it’s changing times again.
Because of this logistical difficulty, we got lucky.
I did a 2.5 hour ride the afternoon after that crash, and a 5 hour ride the next day. I needed it to keep my body loose, but mainly for my head.
Since this crash, I’ve been in a weird spot. My legs have felt like crap, yet my heart rate has responded very well, as if I’m fresh, almost like I lost a ton of fitness in that one crash. Maybe it’s the stress on my body, or maybe I am just not going well, or maybe it’s the heat, or who the hell knows? That’s the game of cycling.
There’s only one way to find out: race next week!
Regardless of how I am in terms of fitness, I’m excited to experience Oregon Trail Gravel! So much has happened in a month that to line up, as cliché as it sounds, is already a win. Of course, I’m left projecting external pressure and the voices of “that guy has had a shit season” on myself, but the only way to fix that is to race, have fun, and hopefully, end up coming out feeling great about my rides.