Ride Report: Cannock 9th May 2012

Wednesday’s ride started out like any other in the last few weeks. Grey, wet and pretty miserable. What was different this time though was that Jim was finally back from injury. He took a decent fall up North somewhere a few months ago and had some shoulder issues. We jumped the train to Cannock and headed off into the Chase.We had been having a pretty good ride. Due to the weather there was hardly a soul about so we pretty much the trail to ourselves. It was pretty slippery but not to bad, the puddles were deep though which meant it didn’t take long for everything to be covered in Cannock’s world renowned grinding paste.

We were on the return leg of the ride with only a short section of Follow The Dog left to do when I had a crash. I was turning right, into the Wolf Drop feature, when I had the misfortune of clipping the tree to the left of the entrance. This caused the bike to pull to the left as I went over the lip meaning the front wheel was now facing the wrong direction and skidding down the drop. The main part of the bike was side on to where I should have been going and being as steep a run out as it is there was no way I could stop my momentum talking me into a swan dive down the slope. I landed pretty heavily on my chest and shoulder area. There was a loud snapping sound which I instantly thought was my collar bone, and if that wasn’t enough then got bad cramp in my right calf. I guess this was because it was twisted up awkwardly, still being tangled in the bike. After running my fingers along my shoulder area I realised it was still in one piece and breathed a sigh of relief.  Jim helped me up and we decided it was probably just the sound of my chest slapping into the puddle that I landed in.

I could feel a dull ache in my upper right arm and upon investigation it became apparent that movement in that arm was going to be an issue. We strapped up my dodgy wing in a make shift inner tube sling and prepared for the trudge through the mud to get back to the train station. It was about 45mins to Rugeley Town but unfortunately we had just missed a train so it was 50mins on the platform in the rain waiting for the next one. Once back in Birmingham I was able to get picked up by the long suffering girl in my life and finally made it home by about 11pm. Shower, change of clothes, something to eat and I was feeling a lot better, although clearly my arm was still pretty screwed. I was exhausted by this point after everything that had happened, I guess that shock had kicked in as well and I decided that a trip to the hospital would have to wait until the morning.

So worst thing first, I have broken my arm. I have a crack in the Humerus at the very top where the rotator cuff muscle joins the bone. The good news here is that the rotator cuff and surrounding ligaments are probably OK. I have some bruised ribs and chest. My hip also came out in bruising this morning. I will be in the sling for 2 weeks at which point I need to go for another x-ray. All being good it will be 2 more weeks of rest then a couple of weeks physio. 6 weeks off the bike in total. Fingers crossed that it will be healed enough that I can get back to proper training by July so I’m back up to distance to do the South Downs Way in August.