Hello and happy new year!
Here’s something to think about when riding dirt on your fatties and MTBs.
Firstly, I haven’t posted here in many years and I’ll explain why.
I’m 61 right now and got crazy about cycling in my early 50’s, so not that long ago. It changed my whole life and outlook. I lost 100 lbs in under a year, rode gravel centuries, cycled year round including through the freezing winter weather up on the shores of the bay of Green Bay in Door County Wisconsin.
( I used to post here a bit but I doubt anyone will remember me.)
In August 2015 I came off a Salsa Beargrease fat bike big time. I was single tracking at Peninsula State Park in Fish Creek WI and went over the bars on a fast downhill. It happened so quickly I couldn’t get a hand down and my chin took the full force of the impact. I was a wreck but nothing was broken. I used to run a cycling blog at the time called Fat Man Biking and I wrote about the accident here:
https://tent.bike/2015/09/07/crashing-out/
I only posted one more time on my blog, about a month ago after the crash, and it’s basically abandoned, as has been my cycling activity.
Here’s why:
While it took me a couple days to recover physically from the accident, I didn’t know it at the time but I hurt my spine, my neck. C3 through C7 to be exact.
I also hurt my confidence badly, and couldn’t get enthusiastic about riding the trails again, so I stopped.
A few weeks and months later I began with some weird health issues, neuropathy in my feet (or so it was diagnosed). One day I was riding on the road and had severe muscle spasms and palpitations and ended up in the ER. They couldn’t find anything wrong even after a stress test. I didn’t associate any of this with the bike accident, it just didn’t figure since I had seemed to fully recover from the crash.
I’d various minor health issues that may or may not have been related to the incident over the years but around 4 years after the crash I developed a sharp pain in my left arm. I did nothing about it, as guys do, thinking it was just old age.
Over a three year period the pain spread to my shoulder and neck and when it got to the point where it was pretty unbearable I went for help. They X-Rayed my arm and shoulder but not my neck and nothing showed up. It was misdiagnosed as a rotator cuff injury and PT was prescribed.
I knew instinctively that diagnosis was wrong so I pushed back and they ordered up an MRI which was scheduled for weeks out. Meanwhile I had a heart attack and had a stent fitted, which became relevant when I had my MRI.
The MRI showed that two vertebra where pressing up against my spinal cord, one of the two pinching and compressing the cord acutely.
An emergency surgery was scheduled then I received a message from the surgeon’s office saying that they couldn’t perform the procedure due to my being on blood thinners from the stent.
Long story shortened a little but I had to wait almost six months before my surgery could take place. That was an agonizing 6 months as I was not only in severe pain but also had the possibility of my spinal cord being severed should I receive a knock or suffer a fall.
So 7 days ago on December 27th I had a decompression and fusion surgery on my neck. They wanted to go in through the front of my neck, my throat, but couldn’t, due to the amount of bone being removed from my vertebrae. They installed rods and bolts and got me all stitched back together in a 5 hour procedure. I’m now at home recovering.
So far I still have all of the symptoms that I had pre surgery and all of the arm, shoulder, neck pain is the same. So that’s disappointing but I’m hoping it will improve in time.
Sharing this is a little cathartic, I’m not soliciting good vibes messages. But I just wanted to share so people might think more seriously about taking adequate protection when riding their bikes.
I should’ve had a helmet with a chin guard, I didn’t think enough about the consequences of riding without one.
Anyway, though it’s been about 8 years I still have my Salsa Beargrease. I love the bike, it took me to many places and I’ve many fond memories of riding it.
Who knows, maybe in six months or so I will take her out for a spin.
I hope you all stay safe and well during your adventures in 2024.
C
