Collarbone Break

Somehow, in the seven year span since I started riding a road bike with clipless pedals, I have not fallen on the road once. I was ultra diligent in learning to clip in and clip out, and I’ve always been a very cautious rider in a group and in traffic.

Last year when I started racing, I was terrified of crashing. If you’ve ever seen videos of cycling crashes, it looks anything but pleasant. Last weekend it finally happened to me, but definitely not how I expected.

Bryan and I traveled into the city to CRCA’s Grants Tomb Criterium. They’re doing a lot of great things for women’s cycling, and I had to opportunity to race twice and hopefully score some upgrade points. My races were great. I had bigger fields than I’m used to, I think I improved on the second race, and I scored a total of 5 upgrade points. There was about a 3 hour gap between the end of my race and Bryan’s, so we decided to go for a low key enjoyable ride in Central Park. A few miles into the ride, something that I can describe as a feral child darted straight into the road, stutter stepped like a squirrel, and crouched to the ground. Next thing I saw was the sky above, and I think my wheels in the air.

The most important thing to me was to make sure she was okay, and get to the side of the road and assess the damage. Luckily, the little girl was perfectly okay, and finished darting across the road. As I stood up in pain, my legs were okay, but my right side was not happy.

First, I would like to say that there are a lot of really amazing, kind-hearted strangers out there. From the runner who offered to call 911, to the cyclist who actually rode his bike home to get ice for me and told me a coffee shop nearby I could wait at if Bryan went back to get the car and pick me. I’m sure there were other people involved, and I just didn’t happen to notice or interact with them directly. I just want to thank all the thoughtful concerned people out there.

Second, why don’t people take responsibility for their actions, or their children’s actions? I understand it wasn’t on purpose, but on a ring rode that clearly has pedestrian crosswalks, when your child darts into the road and causes an accident, you are responsible. You’re responsible for the person on the side of the road saying, “I think my collarbone is broken”. You definitely don’t come over, offer a lyft (to a closed ring road – thanks a lot), and then promptly leave before the ambulance or police officers arrive. While I’m sure those 5 minutes were a damper on your day, and your daughter might have cried a little bit, I’m sure you went on with your day, maybe got some fro-yo and had a nice dinner in the city. Meanwhile, I went to the ER, found out I had a displaced clavicle fracture, and had to go about scheduling surgery, and currently over a week later I’m hoping to be one fourth of the way into being impacted day-to-day by this accident. Take some responsibility for your lack of attention to your children. At least wait until the person leaves, maybe get their number to check in to see how they’re feeling?

That’s it for me – my rant is over on the topic. Check back in a couple days to see how I’m handling not being able to run or bike.