After 35 years of riding on two wheels, you’d think I’d have learned this rule by now: when it rains, roads get wet. When roads get wet, they get slippery. When roads are slippery and you’re riding on slick tires less than an inch wide, it doesn’t take much to tip you over. When you tip over, you get hurt.
And at the age of 40, you’re really too old to hurt this much from something so silly. My encounter with a wet, slimy wooden railway bridge on one of my favorite rides ended kinda badly. Apart from the massive bruise on my hip, my left shoulder took the impact of my crash, and my shoulder didn’t appreciate thar honor at all. Now, X-rays show no fractures, no dislocations, but the fact that I can’t move my arm in most directions indicates that something pretty substantial is wrong. The rotator cuff (on which I have overnight become a bona fide ‘net expert) is one of those amazing constructions like the knee that makes you marvel at the human body. I mean, look at the design of that thing: all the little nooks and crannies that come together to give you incredible flexibility and range of motion, yet the strength and rigidity to make use of it all in a controlled fashion. Except, right now my arm is like Dr. Strangelove’s and needs to be moved with my other hand, and it’s a little disconcerting…
Good friends and doctors tell me that I should wait two weeks or so before I get an MRI and determine if I did, in fact, tear one or more of the ligaments or muscles that constitute the cuff. If I did, it’s game over for a long, long time — no more biking (at least not at the level I enjoy), no skate skiing this winter (worst possible motion for a bad shoulder, methinks) and just general misery all around. On the other hand, if it’s “just” a really bad bruise, then I may in fact be able to pull off a Lance-like recovery and be back in time for the Vermont 50 that was supposed to be the grand finale to this season. That’s 50 miles of challenging, hilly singletrack, ridden on a singlespeed under race pressure — not really the best thing for a body that’s slightly out of whack, but what the hell — it’d be worth it. So fingers crossed…
