On Friday July 4 I took a tumble over my handlebars. I’m stable and alright now; it could’ve been much worse. But here’s the full story for your pleasure (or displeasure).

My friend Andrew (check out his Soundcloud) and I had summited Flagstaff Mtn via Chapman Dr. We took the back road to avoid cars because cars are how you get injured. We made great time on the way up, chilled up there sufficiently, and were ready to rejoin the rest of the group for a Fourth party.

I had done this descent a month or so ago. Rather stupidly in hindsight, I was wondering if I could beat my previous time down (11:05). I was doing pretty good. There were these drainage bumps every so often but as long as I slowed down before I went over them, everything felt ok.

As Andrew recalled: Jon is going pretty fast and it looks fun. I want to keep up with him but it’s also going to hurt pretty bad if I wreck. So I’m just gonna keep it nice and controlled.

See that right there, that’s wisdom! I didn’t have that online yet.

It was around this time that I glanced back to make sure Andrew was still good. It was a fairly long straightaway, I knew I wasn’t careening towards a turn. What was actually happening is I was careening towards a bump and by the time I looked up ahead and saw it, I did not have time to slow down. In the second before hitting the bump I knew, ah shit I’m too fast and this is going to be bad. My Strava from my previous ride peaked out at 35mph, it is possible I was around a similar speed for this but the recording for this ride stopped for some reason.

Unlike a jump where a) I expect it b) I’m on a bike that I feel confident taking jumps on and c) the bump is a jump and a not a bump - none of these were true. So it’s less that I took the jump and more fair to say I smashed into a bump and was instantly airborne, going over the handlebars. The exact arrangement and orientations of body and bike are a little blurry (no head injuries, just a lot of shit happening at once and yes I had a helmet on) but I was in the air until I put my left hand out to break my fall. I sufficiently broke my fall with my arm, landing on my shoulder next, then hip, then sliding along on the fronts of my thighs for a fair while.

I come to a stop, head pointing downhill. Nothing really hurts, nothing feels broken. Andrew pulls up I think? I roll over and then spin my self around so that my legs are downhill letting me comfortably collapse and lay on my back. It feels weird to move myself around, my left arm isn’t really obeying me. I remember saying “that was dumb”. I drink some water from my hydration bladder. Pain is starting to fade into my awareness and there are a lot of different sources but after we look around, nothing is gushing blood, just dripping and slowly oozing. I figure, party’s over, time to go home and clean up.

We get back on our bikes (ouch). My bike’s back tire keeps rubbing against the frame of the bike. We pull over (ouch), trying to see if we can align it back into position but it’s actually bent. I get back on (ouch) and continue anyway because what else are we gonna do. This ride was not fun, it was all downhill from there. The pain was starting to come in a little more intensely as the shock wore off, but mentally I kept replaying the scene in my mind.

Each time I would alter the parameters of the crash a little bit; a few degrees here, a few inches this way - with some of these scenarios ending with me laying in place waiting for paramedics to move me onto a stretcher right now. Or worse. I tried not to think about it but soon enough the crash would replay in my mind once more and the whole thing would restart.

I ride past someone in a motorized wheelchair, headed up on the creek path. I wonder about my spinal cord. I think about mobility and agency. About how I use my fingers to type code and make a living for myself. About how fragile our bodies are. How resilient we are. How much can change in the split second of a moment. I think about Savannah. How much I love her. How much she loves me. How stupid I was.

We get home. I send some ibuprofen down the chute. I take a cool shower to try and scrape the gravel out of these wounds. I am cringing writing this, because yeah that was rough. Maybe the roughest part of all of this. I watch the blood water run down the drain and feel dumb, dumb, dumb. Everything is starting to hurt for real and the ibuprofen is not kicking in fast enough.

• Prizes won: grade 1 acromioclavicular separation (1 = least severe, 3 = most). A whole lot of soreness on my upper chest/right shoulder. Road rash on left shoulder, left elbow, right palm, left hip, both thighs, and right ankle. Bruising, swelling, and numbness on left thigh. And a whole lot of hurt pride.
• Both the GP and the PT that saw me since are both bikers and have both messed up their AC joint, in variously more significant ways than I did. I felt very understood, and this is a surprising perk I didn’t really recognize before about living in this town.
• Shoutout to Andrew for accompanying me home and doing the initial pass at cleaning me up and brilliantly throwing in a frozen pizza into the Doordash medical supplies order. Also to my sister who went into ER nurse mode over the phone to advise me on things.
• Savannah has been an absolute angel in taking care of me throughout this. From tightening my shoes when I’m ready to go outside to get some sun to making the extra run to Walgreens to get more of the really nice non stick pads. Bless her heart.
• Really appreciated Gary and Lauren dropping off a care package containing an entire dispenser of individually wrapped candy coated ibuprofen, gummy bears, muscle tape, cheez its, and a joint for good measure.
• The world, and by that I mean, the tools I use, the environments I move between, the vehicles I move around in, the interfaces I use - are largely not designed for anything out of the “default” albe-bodied human body shape + configuration.
• How little thought I give to how easy it is to roll out of bed in the morning on the regular. or cup my hands to bring water up to my rinse when I’m brushing my teeth. putting a dish in the dishwasher. and how much more painful and difficult these simple tasks become when your body took a bad tumble
• I’ve been wearing exclusively button ups in the days since the crash and Savannah is appreciating it big time.
• This video by Travis Pastrana and his worst injuries was really illuminating in how resilient our bodes can actually be; that recovery does happen eventually and if he’s been able to come back from his laundry list of things then I’ll get through this