Road to recovery speeds up.
 

My old riding partner Chris has been working his way back from a very bad accident and we finally got a chance to meet up again after a few weeks of solo riding. Chris has been riding every other day because his legs still aren't able to handle the back-to-back days. I spoke with him last week and he wasn't happy with his average speed on his solo rides. As I told him he's still far ahead of what the doctors told him as they expected him to still be on crutches or using a walker never mind riding a bike. He asked if I was interested in doing a rail trail ride on my half day Friday and he wanted to do a longer ride than what he's been doing. So, we meet and then roll out for his longest ride of 31 miles and was surprised when Chris wanted to take the front on some pulls. It's great to see him getting stronger and feeling better with each ride but I do try and keep him grounded and not overextend himself to the point of slowing his recovery. Talked to him two days after the ride and he's feeling great, so we'll do another Friday long ride this week.

Nice to see his recovery.

I guess I'm fortunate in havng loads of crashes and no serious stuff as a result. It could and does so often go the other way.
Spoke to another oldie recently who said he'd never had a prang on his bike since he was a child.
Felt like slapping his face . . .

Recovery's a challenge. Different for everyone. My one big fall on a bike was relatively injury free. A bit of road rash, but that was it.

My worst injury was from over-doing it with a variety of sports, which all conspired one morning to fry a handful-sized chunk of muscles on a leg. Took a long time (years) to fully recover to be capable of swimming, running, cycling again, to the point I wasn't worried about the leg collapsing or re-injuring.

Kudos to your friend for getting this far. And Kudos to you for assisting in ensuring the friend doesn't push things too soon.