Damn Cyclists

[xbgs351]

Originally Posted by RG

For crying out loud, why is everyone bickering like school girls and getting so worked up?

Seriously, come on this is getting ridiculous.

I get worked up because inconsiderate actions by motorists put my life and the life of my family and friends at risk.

This is an incident that happened to me about two years ago.....


Last Thursday night when riding home after doing an intense bunch ride, I was cycling two abreast with one other rider. I was riding about one metre out from a line of parked cars doing 32 km/h (20 mph), when a driver opened their car door a fraction of a second before I reached it. I had absolutely no opportunity to swerve. I collected the door with my left hand and handlebar. I had visions of being flung off my bike and into the path of a following vehicle, just like an incident that recently claimed the life of a cyclist in my region. Fortunately I was flung off the seat and out of pedals and I managed to stay upright by sliding along on my bike shoes, kind of like a barefoot water skier. When I came to a stop, I laid the bike down on the road and walked to the footpath. My middle finger on my left had felt sore, so I had a look at it and I didn't like what I saw. My first impression was that I had lost the end of my finger, but on closer inspection it was all there, but had been degloved from the tip to just before where the finger nail begins. I was dripping blood all over the footpath and luckily one of the first people on the scene was a GP. She put everything back in place and wrapped it in a tea towel. I was feeling rather light headed and nauseous at this stage. The couple from the car that opened the door on me were very apologetic and helpful. They took both myself and my bike to the local emergency department and hung around until I was admitted.

I was taken into triage within quarter of an hour, where the nurse inspected the injury and placed a bandage onto the finger to ease the bleeding and keep everything in place. I was then lead into the emergency ward, stripped of my bike clothes and gowned up. After awhile a doctor arrived, I was given morphine and a drip and she inspected the injury. A surgeon was then called to look at the wound. He said "I'm not going to lie to you, but this will bloody hurt" and he then instructed the doctor to give me a nerve block, flush out the wound and stitch it up. The doctor sewed up the wound, I was given IV antibiotics and some more pain killers and I was sent home. I was informed that infection was now the biggest risk, that the stitches were to come out in a weeks time and that I shouldn't return to work for a fortnight.

When I got home I had a look over my bike and gear. Where my finger was, the handlebar tape had been cut all the way through into the carbon fibre of the handlebar, a bidon cage had been ripped off, the carbon fibre sole of my left shoe had been cut all the way through for about an inch and the cleats had been really worn down. Since then I have also noted that my front wheel has a bit of a woof in it, which is pretty hard to do with Mavic Kysriums. I can't picture the repair being real cheap, but I'm confident that the car driver will pay.

The next day I went back to the hospital for x-rays of my fingers and hand. It turns out that the finger that had been degloved has multiple fractures at the end of the finger, but that the other fingers although stiff and sore are unbroken. Apparently such fractures take around six weeks to heal.

At this stage I'm planning on taking a week of work and then returning to answer the phones and do some paperwork. Being stuck at home with only one working hand is so boring.

This morning I went to take my bike to the local Trek dealer for a quote, only to find that they are closing down. This is a bit of an inconvenience as now the bike has to go back to were I bought it which is 800km round trip. The joys of living in our wide brown land.


So guys and girls, never ever open a car door without taking a good look for approaching traffic.



I was riding on the drops, so my fingers were right were the damage is.



The carbon fibre has looked better.



Looking at this, it is surprising that I didn't injure my foot at all.






I'm glad it was the cleats wearing down, not my knee/hip/elbow.



One week down, and the finger is healing up extremely well. If I'm lucky I may not even lose the nail. The biggest danger till this point was an infection getting into the bone. Now that the stitches are out I only have another day before infection should be an non issue.



I have got the quote for the damage to my bicycle and it's just over $1500. Now I have to wait for the approval of the other guys insurance company. I'm hoping that I won't have to go through the rigmarole of them trying to source a replacement bike and me having to explain how much the bike is actually worth to replace, or them trying to get another quote from Monkeys R Us Bike Store. A Trek Madone with Record componetry and Kysrium SLs isn't that cheap or easy to source. I would like to have the bike back for the Christmas Holidays as they are traditionally a cycling based holiday in my family, but somehow I think that I have a better chance of seeing the real Santa Claus.