Wear your helmet

All stitched up and ready to go? No...

It was a typical Saturday and I was riding across town after a great morning of yoga and climbing at Mission Cliffs. It was about noon and I was riding the correct direction on a wide one way street when a van sped out of an alley and hit me from the side. The driver got out, pulled me to the curb, got back in and took off leaving me unconscious and bleeding from a head wound and my left knee. I suffered a major concussion, a large cut over my left eye and a had a large puncture wound on my knee that went all the way to the bone. I don't remember most of what happened before the hospital and things for a while after are pretty spotty as well.

Infection!

After my initial visit, I was "ok" for about a week if supported by a lot of pain killers. Unfortunately the following weekend found me back in the hospital with a staff infection in my knee that left me in a hospital bed for about a week. It wasn't fun. I am now a poster child for helmets and other bicycle safety gear.

Almost normal again.

The infection was the most scary, more so than being hit in the first place. It went from nothing to swollen like a grapefruit in about four hours, really just came out of nowhere. I was lucky to not only keep my leg but to live through it all in the first place.

Since the accident I've been a bit more timid and certainly more "defensive" in my riding but I'm back on my bike as well as a couple other project bikes. With the whole thing months behind me now, other than gaining eight or ten pounds, I'm feeling pretty much back to normal. I'm even regaining a degree of tolerance for cars. Though vans still spook me a little. This was a very different accident from the one early in 2012 where I broke some ribs riding fixie after someone stole my brakes. 2012 was a challenging year.

I missed a season of sailing but I've made a few climbs and will hopefully keep my sponsor. I thought long and hard and hesitated about posting this but in the end I think we need to see in very personal ways what can happen in a fraction of a second when cars don't see pedestrians and bicyclists. Ride safe and WEAR YOUR HELMET.