- Joined
- Jan 17, 2009
- Messages
- 5,204
- Reaction score
- 1,547
Got in a good bit of riding lately, many in groups, and a good bit locally. On a day of nice weather when I would have liked to ave done a group ride, having missed one a day before due to other commitments (Rocket Launch!), I did a 21-mile local ride that was sort of like a self-created group ride (I’m giving thought to doing an unofficial group ride this fall, invite riders on the group rides I do, and work up a pretty decent route that’d be interesting to ride. )
Anyway, unfortunately there was an accident on the Sunday ride. First half was fine, thru a nature preserve. Some hills which wore my legs but not too bad.
The ride back was mostly flat, but one area was slightly downhill, there was a big bump on it, at least 3" tall, maybe 4". If it was a ROAD it might be labeled as a speed bump! I was near the front and made it OK, rider ahead of me said “bump”, if he had not, I might have crashed (we were not going THAT fast, not like the 20-25 MPH on some of the nature preserve downhills. It was the severity of the bump). Then 10-15 seconds later we heard “rider down” from behind us. A very experienced rider hit that bump and went down HARD . Arm badly scraped, worst of all a likely broken collarbone or ribs or both. At first he didn’t want an ambulance, but the group at least talked him into letting them call the paramedics to check him out, and it turned out he did take an ambulance (at least this was very close to a major road, about 100 feet, not far in the middle of nowhere like we can be at times). A few riders stayed with him, also a neighbor nearby was very helpful.
The rest of us rode back quickly, so that a couple could get cars to come pick up the riders and bikes left behind. I had a bit of trouble with the pace (but we needed to get back quickly so i’m not complaining, just describing), and our sweeper was with the injured rider. I was able to keep up enough, and had the navigation aids to get back if need be (The route varies a bit and I’d not ridden that leg often enough to memorize it).
Anyway, got to my car and heard the update that the rider had taken an ambulance to the emergency room. No other info on his condition.
Now, we’d been on that part of trail a time or two last fall, but it seems like that bump got worse over winter (but it also sneaks up on you, more of a “oh yeah, that bump again” after you hit it or maybe see it an instant before hitting it). On the ride back I thought about what I could do, and decided to stop at a hardware store, get a can of fluorescent marking spray, and drive back to that area and mark that bump. Also to take other photos to document it before and after spraying it.
Cause of the bump is this corrugated pipe:
After painting, and showing the part of the path we came from:
You can see darker asphalt, from a previous patch job, where I painted "BUMP" on both sides.
If whoever maintains that trail is going to be upset that I painted it…... GOOD!
I expect that the ride leader will be contacting whoever maintains it and try to get them to fix it. There were signs of a previous re-paving but clearly it’s a continuing problem. Only way they could properly fix that is to dig up that pipe and install it so it’s deeper, preferably with a rectangular pipe or some smaller side by side pipes.
To change back to riding, that was a 22.2 mile group ride. After the time it took to get paint, drive there (using GPS data I recorded), take photos and paint it. I was not feeling too tired. On the drive to that spot, I drove past a wooden trail bridge over a highway that I had always been interesting in riding. So, I found the trail it was on , parked, and rode my bike to it. I felt OK, and the weather forecast was for rain Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, a planned group ride likely to be cancelled if the forecast holds. And other than the bridge (which I walked up to save energy/legs), that area is VERY flat. And the weather that day was SO good, low wind, good temperature. So I decided to try to get in a few more miles while I could, ride 4 down the trail so I’d have 8 to make for more than 30 for the day. Things went well, and I kept going. Eventually ended up at 20.5 miles. So, rode 42.7 miles for the day. That’s the second longest total I’ve done for a day, only one longer was a special 71 mile carefully planned ride on flat rail trail (Goal had been 58). And that was on top one having ridden some hills on the first half of ride #1 and a hard pace for the last 6 miles, not the sort of hard riding I’d do for a planned 40+ mile riding day.
Total for year to now, 532.8 miles according to MapMyRide. But it always shaves off a bit from the Cyclemeter GPX files.
FWIW - I sometimes take “Sport Legs”, and fortunately did for ride#1 to help with the leg weariness I always feel from rides on that preserve. And also took a couple before ride #2. I ended ride #2 more from “bottom weariness” than anything else (though definitely riding about 2 mph slower than usual), plus it was long past time for me to get home.
Been waiting awhile to post this last part in an update. Two of weeks ago, Steve Kristal ("Gus") sent me a couple of water bottles, with Saturn-V type markings on them.
Anyway, unfortunately there was an accident on the Sunday ride. First half was fine, thru a nature preserve. Some hills which wore my legs but not too bad.
The ride back was mostly flat, but one area was slightly downhill, there was a big bump on it, at least 3" tall, maybe 4". If it was a ROAD it might be labeled as a speed bump! I was near the front and made it OK, rider ahead of me said “bump”, if he had not, I might have crashed (we were not going THAT fast, not like the 20-25 MPH on some of the nature preserve downhills. It was the severity of the bump). Then 10-15 seconds later we heard “rider down” from behind us. A very experienced rider hit that bump and went down HARD . Arm badly scraped, worst of all a likely broken collarbone or ribs or both. At first he didn’t want an ambulance, but the group at least talked him into letting them call the paramedics to check him out, and it turned out he did take an ambulance (at least this was very close to a major road, about 100 feet, not far in the middle of nowhere like we can be at times). A few riders stayed with him, also a neighbor nearby was very helpful.
The rest of us rode back quickly, so that a couple could get cars to come pick up the riders and bikes left behind. I had a bit of trouble with the pace (but we needed to get back quickly so i’m not complaining, just describing), and our sweeper was with the injured rider. I was able to keep up enough, and had the navigation aids to get back if need be (The route varies a bit and I’d not ridden that leg often enough to memorize it).
Anyway, got to my car and heard the update that the rider had taken an ambulance to the emergency room. No other info on his condition.
Now, we’d been on that part of trail a time or two last fall, but it seems like that bump got worse over winter (but it also sneaks up on you, more of a “oh yeah, that bump again” after you hit it or maybe see it an instant before hitting it). On the ride back I thought about what I could do, and decided to stop at a hardware store, get a can of fluorescent marking spray, and drive back to that area and mark that bump. Also to take other photos to document it before and after spraying it.
Cause of the bump is this corrugated pipe:
After painting, and showing the part of the path we came from:
You can see darker asphalt, from a previous patch job, where I painted "BUMP" on both sides.
If whoever maintains that trail is going to be upset that I painted it…... GOOD!
I expect that the ride leader will be contacting whoever maintains it and try to get them to fix it. There were signs of a previous re-paving but clearly it’s a continuing problem. Only way they could properly fix that is to dig up that pipe and install it so it’s deeper, preferably with a rectangular pipe or some smaller side by side pipes.
To change back to riding, that was a 22.2 mile group ride. After the time it took to get paint, drive there (using GPS data I recorded), take photos and paint it. I was not feeling too tired. On the drive to that spot, I drove past a wooden trail bridge over a highway that I had always been interesting in riding. So, I found the trail it was on , parked, and rode my bike to it. I felt OK, and the weather forecast was for rain Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, a planned group ride likely to be cancelled if the forecast holds. And other than the bridge (which I walked up to save energy/legs), that area is VERY flat. And the weather that day was SO good, low wind, good temperature. So I decided to try to get in a few more miles while I could, ride 4 down the trail so I’d have 8 to make for more than 30 for the day. Things went well, and I kept going. Eventually ended up at 20.5 miles. So, rode 42.7 miles for the day. That’s the second longest total I’ve done for a day, only one longer was a special 71 mile carefully planned ride on flat rail trail (Goal had been 58). And that was on top one having ridden some hills on the first half of ride #1 and a hard pace for the last 6 miles, not the sort of hard riding I’d do for a planned 40+ mile riding day.
Total for year to now, 532.8 miles according to MapMyRide. But it always shaves off a bit from the Cyclemeter GPX files.
FWIW - I sometimes take “Sport Legs”, and fortunately did for ride#1 to help with the leg weariness I always feel from rides on that preserve. And also took a couple before ride #2. I ended ride #2 more from “bottom weariness” than anything else (though definitely riding about 2 mph slower than usual), plus it was long past time for me to get home.
Been waiting awhile to post this last part in an update. Two of weeks ago, Steve Kristal ("Gus") sent me a couple of water bottles, with Saturn-V type markings on them.
Last edited:
