2019 starts with a THUD

As predicted New Years Eve was a very tame one at home.  I celebrated with a couple Zimas and a shot of apple pie moonshine while I did a brief stream to test out my new AV equipment.  Cindy spent a good portion of the night making her first fondant cake which I think turned out very well. For the first time ever we didn’t have the ABC broadcast on as the ball dropped.  Cindy instead had on the NBC version with Carson Daly and Chrissy Teigen.  I thought they were pretty awful, I hope to return to the Dick Clark memorial broadcast going forward.

New Year’s day I made an effort to not get sucked into the must do a project mindset.  After tending to the chickens in the morning I kept my mind and schedule open.  Cindy was busy doing a number of things so I told her I wanted to take the Backfire Ranger skateboard to Dunkin Donuts and back, hopefully.  It’s posted maximum range of 20 miles is right at the distance for the ride so I was unsure if I would actually make it or not.  I asked Cindy if she could be my pick up vehicle if I ran out of juice which she agreed to.

I did this ride once before on the Meepo e-skateboard but only to DD, not back.  The ride on the Backfire was much easier.  The large rubber tires and softer suspension allows it to handle small objects and undulations in the surface much better.  I was enjoying the ride as I was cruising in the bike lane of Immokalee Road.  I had Strava running to monitor my speed, I was cruising in the neighborhood of 15-16 mph, slower than I would on an EUC but still a nice pace. The ride was going great so far.

So something to my right caught my attention, to be honest I can’t even tell you what it was.  All I know was I looked away from the bike lane for a couple seconds.  In a split second I found myself smashed into the asphalt on my right side with my right arm extended above me.  I hit something in the road that instantly stopped the board and sent me flying.  As I laid on the ground stunned for a few seconds I heard a driver with his window down going the opposite way yell “WOOOOAHHHHH!”, he must have seen the fall and I am sure it looked bad, real, real bad.

So as I stood up I did a quick self inventory, I knew I had hurt myself but I still had basic functionality in all body parts.  I instantly started searching for the board which somehow wound up on the median side of the three lane road.  Oncoming traffic saw me staggering around as well as the board sitting in the roadway, luckily all three lanes stopped.  I limped out and grabbed the Ranger, I didn’t notice any physical damage to the board which was a small win.

I then grabbed the remote control which was in the lane closest to me and retreated back to the bike lane to do a more full assessment of my injuries and damage to equipment. I was not happy to see the waterproof glass over the lens of my brand new GoPro 7 had shattered on impact.  I was holding it at the time of the fall.  I was amazed at how much damage my phone case took, despite it being in my pocket.  The back side of it looks like someone took a belt sander to it.  My cargo shorts were torn to shreds from the impact/slide and my right ankle was seeping blood from a few layers of skin getting torn off.

I could tell I had some bad road rash on the upper right side of my back which I could not see and my right hip was hurting as well.  Considering the nature of the fall which was a total blindside where I had absolutely no chance to brace for impact, I felt somewhat fortunate.  When I saw the piece of angle metal that I hit in the bike lane there was no doubt in why I was stopped instantly.  Even though in the video I curse at and throw the piece of metal on the ground in disgust, the fault for the accident was mine for not closely monitoring the road surface ahead at all times.  I could toss a little blame the road departments way since they appear to be very negligent with their bike lane maintenance/cleaning as displayed by the dead alligator carcass that has resided there for nearly a month.

So I paused for a short period of time to think about when/if I should tell Cindy.  I knew she would be very worried and even though I was beat up I still had basic functionality.  I decided I would hop back on and then call her to ask her to pick me up at DD.  At first I was going to not even mention the fall but then when I stopped to text her I did say I had a “small incident” which of course prompted a phone call 10 seconds later.  She was upset as you would expect.  She wanted me to just stay put.  I assured here I was ok and that I would just ride to DD and meet her there.  The rest of the ride went fine but as you can see in the video Cindy was not happy when she saw me.

When we got home I did a full body inventory revealing pretty substantial road rash and bruising on my back and hip.  I hopped in the shower and dealt with the intense stinging as the hot water hit the open skin but it eventually subsided.  Cindy bandaged up my oozing ankle and I was good to go.  Considering how hard I hit the ground I think I got off pretty easy, much of which I attribute to wearing full gear including helmet, wrist guards, elbow pads, and knee pads.  It could have been much worse.

The video does a solid job of depicting the experience….

So even though I rode, and crashed, I felt uneasy just staying at home.  I played some WoW but then got the urge to go shoot the how to ride a One Wheel video I was talking about.   I popped a couple Advil and headed to North Collier regional park to shoot the video, the same place I shot the video on how to learn to ride EUCs.  I am happy how the video turned out.  I think it accomplished the goal of introducing the One Wheel to an audience similar to myself, someone that has no prior board sport experience.  You can hardly even tell that I wiped out earlier in the day, except for the flapping bloody ankle bandage visible on some shots.

I look forward to closing out the remaining three days of this work week.  Hopefully I got all the bumps and bruises for 2019 out of the way early but somehow I doubt it.