So… yea. Been a die-hard, no-knobby-tire-having, lycra-loving roadie for a while. My idea of getting dirty is road grime in the rain. But like all things, I’m open to evidence that may cause me to change my position. So – I present this counter-argument:

A 22-year-old man suffered an erection for seven weeks after a mountain bike crash. The hard-on finally subsided after two weeks of medical treatment in a hospital.

Hmmm… perhaps I stand corrected. *cough* *cough*

Update: And you thought that I had my tongue firmly placed into my cheek – check out this article. Puns abound!

I like to think of myself as an “individual” – different from the rest of the pack.  I do things my own way, and don’t follow the masses.  That’s why I was sure the first bone I broke in a cycling accident would be something interesting.  Maybe it would be my foot that got broke – as all the folks that were on my wheel accidentally ran over it.  That would be cool.  Or perhaps I’d blow up my patella.  Sounds super-painful, but has something of the “never heard of that” going for it.

Or better yet, maybe I’d be that guy that had a front wheel buckle in the final turn of a crit, flying into a light pole at about 32 MPH, only to stand right up and start cursing the wheel manufacture in Italian.  Oh yea – that’s be my signature crash.

Well, fate has a way of blowing your best ideas.

Instead, true to my JustAnotherCyclist roots, I was taken down by a stick, or a rut, or some such nonsense that I somehow lost in the early morning glare.  I remember a car passing immediately on my left, and this is a narrow street.  Something jerked my wheel hard enough to send me over the bars.  Can’t recall for sure – maybe I saw it but couldn’t avoid it because of the car.  That part is all kinda fuzzy.  Regardless of exactly how it happened, I hit the pavement at around 20 MPH.  The result was what is probably the most common cycling injury after road rash: a broken clavicle.

Adding insult to injury, spring and just arrived here in Sacramento, and this was one of my first spring training rides of the season.  Beautiful weather.  I’d ridden along with my daughter, dropping her off at her school and continuing out for my ride.  I was maybe 5 miles from where I’d left her, heading up H street in Sacramento towards Sacramento State University.

I’ll probably never know exactly what brought me down.  I recall the bars jerking in my hands like I’d run over something, and the next thing I remember is sliding on the pavement.  I didn’t smack my head (as evidenced by my mostly unscathed helmet).  First conscious thought I had was that I was laying in the middle of the lane and had to get out of the road.  I proceeded to start dragging myself towards the curb.

But as soon as I started I felt a burning, stabbing pain in my right side.  I could hardly breath, and every twist was agony.  But getting run over by a car sounded a lot worse, so I continued to drag myself to the curb, convinced I’d damaged my ribs.  It was when I first reached the curb that I noticed an odd grinding, popping feeling in my right shoulder.  In my mind that could logically only be caused by one thing – broken collar bone.

Luckily a couple of folks had stopped in their cars are were checking to see if I was alright.  One picked up my bike out of the road.  I wasn’t really able (or inclined, frankly) to turn my head to where the bike was to inspect it, but at first glance it seemed OK.  I started thinking of getting a hold of my wife and made a motion to grab my phone out of my back jersey pocket.  The pain in my ribs stopped me.

The second guy there asked me “Are you OK?”  I had to think about that for a minute.  Even speaking took a lot of effort due to the pain in the ribs.  I finally had to say “No.  Can you call me an ambulance?”

From there t is pretty much your typical accident scene scenario.  Fire Truck and Ambulance arrive.  Strapped to a hard back board with a neck brace (just in case) and carted off to the hospital.  According to the X-Rays, there was no detectable break in any of the ribs (good news!) but the clavicle is clearly broken.   Looks like I’ll grudgingly be off of the bike for at least a few weeks.

I do need to mention my new favorite dentist – Fritz Harrold, D.M.D.  His office was about a half block from where I crashed.  He was nice enough to take my bike and store it in his office while the paramedics loaded me into the ambulance.  I found his handwritten address, and a business card, in my wallet which I vaguely recall being placed there by a firefighter.

There you have it.  That was last Wed, April 6.  Yesterday was the first day when my ribs didn’t hurt, so I think I’m good there.  Sea Otter and Tour de Cure participation is in limbo at the present – very very doubtful I’ll be able to ride TdC.

Of course, this is MY crash, so I think it is very cool and dramatic and interesting.  Ultimately, though, it is pretty run-of-the-mill.  Cyclist goes down.  Cyclist breaks collar bone.

Guess I can check another item off of the “Cycling Career” checklist.

Levi’s GranFondo spawned a significant crash before the riders even made it to the start line.  This wasn’t bicycles piling up, however.  Instead, the popularity of the ride apparently resulted in a significant outage on the first day of registration as folks rushed to ensure a place in the hugely successful event.  Despite having reportedly “planned for several times the traffic from 2010’s registration opening day” folks were unable to register, and the registration system was taken offline and postponed.

According to a post on the event’s Facebook page:

When we designed the registration system for 2011, we built what we thought were strong systems to get all the information we need from you in order to put on what we believe is the best ride in the world. Unfortunately, we developed these systems for a load that was far surpassed by the actual traffic on our website and, later in the day, in our registration database. Based on past experience and statistics, we planned for several times the traffic from 2010’s registration opening day. Even with this large margin of safety built in, it wasn’t enough. The crush of people forced us to migrate our website to a new, massive server and that same crush brought a new problem at 4pm today, forcing us to rebuild our database structure to handle the load of people trying to register simultaneously.

Now I’m not going to say I know what it takes to run servers under heavy user loads (but if you ask me if I can I’ll answer yes) but I suspect there is a solution to this problem.  If you go just a little bit south of the event’s Santa Rosa host city, you’ll find this mythical place called Silicon Valley.  And guess what – there is a whole lot of road cycling that takes place in that area.  And a few of them may just know a thing or two about running a web service.  Just saying…

Registration is set to (re)open tomorrow, Tue Jan 18 at noon Pacific time.

In my newly conceived (and doomed to fail) endeavor to somehow beat Cyclicious in the celebrities on bikes photo race, I’ve been keen to find something of my own.  So – while laughing my ass off over my morning coffee to yet another Bike Snob post I happened across not a photo – but a video!  Sure – the celebrity isn’t exactly on his bike here – but that is only because it was on his bike before finding the back window of a taxi cab.  And he is bleeding! While celebrities on bikes are indeed cool, nothing will ever top images of bloody cyclists (like this, or this, or even this.  But especially this).   And it is not just pictures – it is video!

So – without further ado:  Bloody Celebrity Cyclist:

In the interest of full disclosure, it must be noted that Mr. Gordon-Levitt was only playing the part of a cyclist in a movie at the time of the collision.  It is not clear if the actor actually ever rides a bike – either with or without gears and/or cable operated brakes.

Here it is folks – the now world famous (really!) crash out to Ione, CA.  Caught in brilliant detail thanks to the careful placement of a GoPro HD Helmet Hero camera right on the handlebars.

I unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) missed this when it happened as I was on southbound I5 traveling back from the 2010 Seattle to Portland bicycle classic.  It looks like the mountains in the Tour de France have taken a second swing at Jens Voigt of Team Saxo Bank.  In the 2009 Tour de France Jens was unfortunately taken out of the race in one of the most dramatic crashes in the tour in recent memory.

This year the mountain tried again, but couldn’t knock him out.  Jens hit the tarmac on stage 16 while descending from the Col de Peyresourde.  In Jens own words, his front tire “just exploded” sending him to the ground, his bike rendered unusable.  Unfortunately all of this happened behind both of the Saxo Bank team cars – leaving Jens without a bike.  He was finally able to get a spare from the neutral support teams, but unfortunately the bike didn’t really fit him.  I think this may be one of the most compelling images of this great rider: tattered and bloody, finishing the stage on a borrowed bike that doesn’t actually fit him, refusing to quit.

The post-stage interview shows typical Jens Voigt attitude and humor remained intact after the crash:

There is a saying among cycling fans: “Jens Voigt doesn’t get road rash.  The road gets Jens rash.”  It captures the toughness this rider has shown throughout his career.  I’m sure the Jens mystique will be even further strengthened after this and as he crosses the Champs-Élysées.

Video posted toYouTube shows the immediate aftermath of the crash on Stage 8 of the Tour de France.  In retrospect this may be viewed as the moment that ended Armstrong’s hopes of the Yellow Jersey in what he himself has declared his last Tour de France.

Older brother Frank Schleck posted a photo on his TweetPhoto stream of a banged up Andy Schleck.  According to a report on VeloNews.com the tumble took place on a training ride and resulted in no serious injuries that might threaten involvement in the upcoming Tour de France.

Andy Schleck (@andy_schleck) himself reported the incident on twitter:

Was out training with@schleckfrank hit a big bump in the road, went down pretty hard,lost quit lot of skin all over my body but I be okay

Frank Schleck (@schleckfrank) also commented:

@andy_schleck went down in training this morning I was really scared.tought about tdf,but finally its just skin n wounds.autch.he is ok

However, all of this happened one day before the Luxembourg national championship race.  It remains to be seen if Andy will be participating in that event.