This isn’t to say I’ve never crashed a bike. When I was nine, I had an accident on an old 1973 Schwinn Varsity that would make Jens Voigt cringe and I have crashed my mountain bike out of pure stupidity. However, up until this morning, I’d never crashed my shiny new Trek.
Yes, that’s right… today I switched teams.
I’m not 100% sure how it all happened, but I was turning around on the bike trail and somehow lost my balance. There was no pedaling involved, I wasn’t hammering down, or even going at a high speed. Before I knew it, I fell to the right and was unable to clip out in time to put my foot down. It might have been the impact on the ground, again, I’m not certain, but when I picked myself up off the ground, I looked down and saw this:
Now, I’m clearly not a professional, or really all that experienced, but I’m pretty sure the cleat isn’t supposed to break off like that.
I rode the 8 km back to my car without being able to clip in and drove promptly to the LBS where they confirmed that the cleat shouldn’t snap off. They then told me that my cleats and shoes show more than the average wear and tear considering they have less than 1,000 km of use. Oh, and speaking of which, my shiny “new” Sidis are slightly damaged from the crash, with a small tear on the back of one of the shoes. Apparently, I’m destined to go through cleats and shoes at only a slightly slower pace than the rate at which I go through gloves.
As for the rest of me, I’m pretty sure I’m okay. There is only minor pain in my right thumb and my knee has a very small spot of “road rash” (a term I’m using lightly here) and a swollen bump. A few hours after the accident, I did start to experience some pain similar to that of having whiplash after a car accident, for which I promptly took a painkiller. Overall, I’m fine.
Tomorrow may be a different story.
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