The vast majority of cycling injuries are RUIs, repetitive use injuries, things like IT Band Friction Syndrome, Handlebar Hand, and QL (quadratus lumborum) strain. Most of these conditions arise from poor fit or poor form, and their deleterious effects are amplified by the high volume of cyclical movement involved in cycling.
Some injuries, though, are traumatic. Sudden. Sharp. The product of bodily contact with ground or tree or pavement or another rider.
Currently, I’m hobbling around on a gimpy ankle, which I rolled hard (POP! POP!) on a slow and casual trail run a few weeks back. That ankle has been garbage for years though really, probably since I kicked the back of John LeDoux’s foot at soccer practice in 1988. A recent X-ray revealed a bone fragment from an old fracture I was not aware of, an array of bone spurs, and some arthritis. It’s out of warranty though, so I guess we’ll patch it up and put it back in service.
On the bike, I’ve sprained that ankle (failure to clip out during a crash), I’ve broken my collarbone, and I’ve partially torn a rotator cuff. There have been contusions and lacerations as well, but those hardly count.
It was the collarbone that turned into the most consequential injury. I did it mistiming a very run of the mill log hop on the mountain bike, hitting the ground with a thud and an unmistakable snapping sound. Once the bone itself healed, which took six or eight weeks, the shoulder joint froze, which is a condition unto itself, “frozen shoulder.” For another few months, I was unable to lift my right arm over my head, and when I forced it to go there, I was rewarded with an exquisite dose of sharp pain that made me fearful of trying to put a t-shirt on. From the collarbone break through the shoulder PT, it was probably 6-8 months before I was riding with any sort of freedom.
This ankle thing will resolve, one way or another. The doctor has requested an MRI to discern the exact nature of the soft tissue problems now clustered around the calcified ones. The good news is that the PT for leg injuries often includes riding a bicycle.
This week’s TCI Friday wonders what your worst bike-related injury was and how long it kept you out of the saddle.
Worst was the rotator cuff tear, which was more painful and tedious than the collarbone break.
I was running alongside the commuter bike out of the garage door as it came down and forgot that workmen had been sawing flagstone out front in the driveway. Overnight, it rained just enough to make it slick but not wash it away. My feet went out from under me and I went airborne and landed heavily on my right shoulder. I heard something pop and it hurt like hell. Rode to work anyway. For the rest of the day, had trouble doing lab work as I could barely raise the shoulder.
Funny thing is, it stopped hurting after a few days but I kept losing muscle mass. An MRI showed a total rotator cuff tear and partial biceps tendon tear. Surgery.
The Taos Orthopaedic guys are really good. Sean Marvil was the guy wielding the knife and he is a sports guy. So after 8 weeks in a brace and some painful PT, I was able to hobble back on the bike and start riding again.
The collarbone was the more classic bike injury. Overlapped wheels in a training race and went down hard, with the pack tumbling over me like those pictures you see when someone craters in the Tour de France. Funny part was my girlfriend was giving an English 100 final exam that day. A lot of her students were straggling in late and she finally asked what their problem was. One student said “well, one lane of Kalanianaole Highway is shut down because an ambulance is picking this bicyclist up off the pavement. Then my girlfriend’s office phone rang….
Albanybenn reminds me. I went OTB once hitting a curb (dumb inattention mistake) and have an AC separation, too. When the doc did the rotator cuff, he fixed some of the damage.
Tri-City BMX, racing Cruiser class in the 45-49 class. Chain breaks, OTB resulting in severe AC joint separation.
I fractured my fifth metatarsal/pinky on my right hand washing out from jumping a planter on my way to a ride. Front wheel slipped on the pine straw and I slammed on the sidewalk concrete. I was wearing armored gloves and my usual wrist guards, but it still hurt bad enough that I sat there for a moment dazed before I rode home. Hand injuries are a nightmare for dentists. To make things worse, I was slated to fly to CO with several friends for the 2014 IMBA fest in Steamboat the next week. This was on a Tuesday afternoon. I did not actually know I had a fracture as I could still move my fingers and while it was sore I could still work. I scheduled an appointment with a hand specialist I had seen a couple times over the years for that Friday.
In the meantime, I made a custom brace out of mouthguard material and treated the area using a diode laser in b/t patients while at work. When I saw the doc, he was tied up in surgery, but they took all the radiographs and texted them to him. They told me I would need to schedule for surgery to have pins placed in my hand, but I could wait to speak with him about the details. I did and he came rolling in an hour later still in surgical attire. He asked me if I had kept working, was I pain and what I had done etc. I told him the above and he was particularly enthused about my use of the laser. He said keep up that regimen, go easy and return in 6 weeks to re-evaluate.
I went on to have a blast in CO, splint and all. I kept up the laser therapy, splint, anti-inflammatories, etc. until I saw him. They re-x-rayed my hand and he came in and said it healed better than had they had gone the surgical route. In fact, it actually healed too well as the reparative ligaments had reinforced everything so well I had to have cortisone shots to release it. I continue to ride with armor and have gone on to use the laser for other injuries (knees, ankles) as well its primary use (soft tissue recontouring) in my office.
I think the worst one I had was on a ride out in the country in Wisconsin. I was out by myself doing a bunch of steep hills in the Driftless Area west of Madison, and as I passed a farmhouse, two dogs came ripping out after me, nipping at my legs. I was doing a little over 20 mph. I thought, “I’ll just drift off to the shoulder, hop off the bike, and get the bike between me and the dogs.”
As I drifted to the shoulder, I was looking down and to my left at the mad, nipping dogs, one of whom had one brown eye and one blue eye. I suddenly looked up and saw a metal mailbox on a 6″ x 6″ wooden post dead center in my path. I was still going about 20.
My bike went just to the right of the poll, but the mailbox hit me square in the chest. I went over the bars and landed on my helmet-covered head. I knocked the mailbox off its perch and landed on top of it, crushing it. I was not knocked out, but instantly had a splitting headache and some damaged ribs. I lost my breath. The damn dogs just turned around and trotted back to the farmhouse.
I didn’t have the breath to call for help. The shock left me immobile. I finally regained enough breath to yell, “HELP!” The farmer came out from behind the house and walked over to me. He helped me up, and asked if I wanted him to call an ambulance. I said no, but I asked if he could give me a ride to my car which was about three miles away. He said, “Sure,” and went to get his pick-up truck. We loaded up my bike and I crawled into the passenger seat, in serious pain.
As we drove along, he apologized for the dogs. I apologized for crushing his mail box with my chest. We both started laughing and that killed my ribs. He said of my crushing the mailbox, “That’s okay. My wife’s been wanting me to replace it anyway.”
And I said to him, “I didn’t want to tell you this, but your wife hired me to hit the mailbox.”