As I stood by my e-bike on the start line of Coloradoā€™s gravel race in August, surrounded by hundreds of other cyclists, I asked myself if I should be feeling like an outsider. Although I knew there were other paracyclists participating in the race, at that moment, surrounded by other able-bodied racers, I felt like the only one. I wondered, too, if I should be feeling triumphant, or maybe nervous, as I waited to start my first big race since a hit-and-run in 2019 left me near death and permanently partially paralyzed.

Instead, I felt right at home. Iā€™ve done hundreds of bike races, and this was my third as a paracyclist. But my comfort caught me off-guard, given the newness of the experience I was about to have: new race, in the eventā€™s new paracycling category, and riding with my still-new body. Looking for something to be comfortably nervous about, I started thinking about my new, untested tires, which were necessitated by an ill-timed sidewall tear days earlier.Ģż

Did I have the right pressure? Would they be grippy enough?

Iā€™d ridden a lot in the weeks leading up to Coloradoā€™s largest gravel race, and had started to feel like the competent, confident rider I used to be, albeit, now accompanied by the whine of my bikeā€™s electric motor when I pedaled. Iā€™d been climbing thousands of feet on the weekends and keeping up with able-bodied riders on group rides.Ģż

ā€œItā€™s champagne gravel,ā€ I said to myself, a name that references Steamboat Springsā€™ pavement-smooth dirt roads, ā€œitā€™s fine. Itā€™ll be fine.ā€ĢżĢż

I told myself that things were fine a lot in the lead up to SBT, even when they were not: it was fine when I rode a borrowed bike at Pete Stetinaā€™s Pay Dirt gravel race in May, and got a bad saddle sore; it was fine when my chain seemed to bounce off my bike after every bump at Coloradoā€™s FoCo Fondo in July; it was fine when I couldnā€™t even sign up for two other races in Colorado because they didnā€™t allow e-bikes, no matter how paralyzed my leg was.Ģż

As a result, I wanted to have a good experience at SBT GRVL; for it to actually be a fine day. The race organization welcomed paracyclists, as well as other marginalized groups, following the lead set by another gravel event, Rebeccaā€™s Private Idaho. Not only was SBT GRVL one of several races to add a paracycling category in 2022, but it also welcomed non-binary athletes with their own categories, and reserved space for the BIPOC-focused group Ride For Racial Justice and the body-inclusive group All Bodies On Bikes, of which I was a member.ĢżĢżĢżĢż

ā€œWe feel really strongly that bikes are a vehicle to build relationships, build community, and see new places,ā€ said Greer Van Dyck, SBT GRVLā€™s community relations director. ā€œOur efforts at being inclusive is the vehicle to help more people of all kinds access that experience.ā€Ģż

The inclusion of paracyclists at more gravel races came at a good time for me, because after three years of healing, I finally felt ready to compete again. Competitive cycling used to be a major part of my life, and prior to the crash, I was used to training and racing 18 hours a week, nearly year-round. The last time Iā€™d raced was in 2019, my sixth season competing in elite international races on the track, and my 11th season as an elite road racer. The Pay Dirt race was the first time I mustered the courage to line up since the bike racer versionĢżof myself was replaced by a different primary descriptor: survivor of vehicular assault. The race went OK, but I forgot the basics of competitive cycling: eat food, drink, and, donā€™t ride an unfamiliar saddle when half your ass is atrophied and youā€™re going to be very far from the car.ĢżPlus, racing with only one functional leg wasĢża whole new thing for me. FoCo Fondo went better, drivetrain issues notwithstanding, but I was the only para in the race and didnā€™t really feel any real pressure to compete.ĢżĢż

SBT was different. Paracyclists could compete in any of the four distances: 37, 60, 100, or 142 miles, and there were more than 40 para-athletes in attendance. There were enough of us that finding accessible parking in town was a bit of an unusual and welcome challenge. We exchanged knowing nods with each other as we cruised the pre-race expo on Yampa Street.Ģż

Meg Fisher, a physical therapist who lost a leg as a young woman and then went on to represent the U.S. in two Paralympic games, was largely responsible for the throng of para-athletes at SBT GRVL. Fisher has preached the importance of welcoming paracyclists to race promoters, highlighting the opportunity the new discipline of gravel has to set the standard for inclusion in cyclingā€”a sport that doesnā€™t have the best track record of being welcoming.ĢżShe organized a reunion for the 2012 Paralympic cycling team at SBT, guaranteeing a critical mass of athletes. Ratcheting lace maker BOA has a medical division, called Click Medical, thatā€™s based in Steamboat Springs and supplies parts for the orthotics and prosthetics that some para athletes, including me, use. They offered prizes for the para-categories, setting the scene for a showdown.Ģż

Kind of.

In Paralympic cycling, athletes are separated into narrow categories based on ability and the equipment they use. At SBT GRVL, we all raced each other in one conglomeration; me and my single paralyzed leg, riding a standard, upright e-bike, could be racing someone with no normally working legs cranking a handcycle up a climb, with or without an electric assist. But the para-athletes I spoke with were excited to be at SBT GRVL, and not at all hung up on minutiae. For many of us, racing was more about participation than results.

Sydney Marshburn, a 24-year-old racer from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, may have been the most excited of all of us. Less than a year prior, she lost most of her left leg to the rare medical condition Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a disorder that impacts connective tissues and blood vessels. She won an entry to SBT in a sweepstakes,Ģżand SBT was her first time riding her recumbent trike on gravel.Ģż

ā€œAdding a para category to a large event like SBT GRVL showed the world that cycling is for everyone, no matter a personā€™s physical impairment,ā€ she told me.Ģż

Sydneyā€™s goal was to finish; I dreamt of winning.Ģż

In fact, I was determined to win at all reasonable costs. I was participating in the 60-mile race, and would share the course with nearly 1,000 other riders. So I decided to ride the front and stay ahead of other paracyclists by outriding every cyclist I could. I hoped my new tires had enough grip and that my chain would stay on.Ģż

The race started with a horn and I weaved through riders until I was sitting at the front, my bike humming away in tour modeā€”the lowest boost settings. It was so exciting to be there, at the head of the race, slicing through the chilled morning air, chatting with other racers and taking selfies. It felt just like the gran fondos Iā€™d ridden in the pastā€”a calm moment before the race began. I stopped worrying about how I thought I was supposed to be feeling and settled into the moment.Ģż

Soon, we hit that champagne gravel and the race was on. I latched onto the back of the lead group and we grunted up a climb. I closed small gaps between the abled-bodied riders ahead a couple times before they dropped me. I switched to turbo mode to catch back up. Were other paras using turbo? Were they sweating up a hill on a handcycle, already miles behind with their lesser mechanical advantage? I decided not to worry about it. Sixty miles is comfortably within the range of my bikeā€™s batteries (and the strength in my legs) but I knew I had to be judicious with turbo mode or I wouldnā€™t make it home. The next time I got dropped, I chased on the flats alongside another rider.Ģż

I lost the lead group at a rest stop when I paused to fill my bottles and the bunch continued on. I declined the proffered whiskey shot because Iā€™m a Serious Bike Racer and it was 9:30 A.M., but I still wasnā€™t able to catch them. I flashed through wafts of manure scent emanating from sleepy ranches and took in the rolling, desert scenery dotted with clumps of cottonwoods and interlaced with streams that gushed after an unusually wet summer.Ģż

I switched to turbo mode for the long, final climb, and started passing some blown 60-milers who had dropped me earlier. After cresting, I inelegantly clattered down the long, bumpy descent. Because of my left legā€™s paralysis, I canā€™t stand evenly on the pedals. Instead, I descend rough terrain by standing on the right pedal. Itā€™s not fast, nor a good way to control the bike, but itā€™s all Iā€™ve got. I did my best to avoid ruts and bulls.Ģż

Closing on the finish, the bike batteries were dipping below ten percent and my legā€”the one that pedalsā€”was very fatigued. I stopped the clock at three hours and two minutes, first paracyclist and 18th overall in the 60-mile distance.Ģż

I spent the rest of the day hanging at the finish with my fiancee and friends, cheering for other riders.Ģż

Sydney was teary at the finish line. ā€œIt was the first time in years I didnā€™t feel completely broken,ā€ she told me later.Ģż

Meg Fisher, the paracycling advocate, was among the last to finish, having completed a back-to-back challenge called the LeadBoat. She had raced the 100-mile Leadville Trail 100 MTB on Saturday, and then done SBTā€™s 140-mile race on Sunday, becoming the first paracyclist ever to do so.Ģż

ā€œFinishing is representative of what we all can do,ā€ she said laterĢżā€œI love that my limits havenā€™t been reached yet. I think thatā€™s what we all find when we set these audacious goals and find that we can reach them.ā€

When it was my turn on the podium, I was tempted by that top step, but it seemed too tall for my shaky, paraplegic balance, and there was no handrail or wall nearby for me to cling to as I climbed up. Instead, I stood in front of the podium and raised my arms, very grateful for the opportunity.

The post Racing My E-Bike Helped Me Fall in Love with the Sport I Lost appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

The first thing I did upon arriving at my new home in Boulder, Colorado, in September 2018ā€“before unloading my 16 bikes, peeing, cracking a beer, or even calling my dad to tell him Iā€™d arrivedā€“was to check out the small balcony behind the condo Iā€™d rented, sight unseen, with my then fiancĆ©e.

Across the street, rising high above me, was a breathtaking mountain: steep, craggy, cut by canyons, and covered with evergreens that yielded to broad slabs of exposed gray stone that had been streaked by eons of pounding wind, thunderstorms, and snowmelt.

This was Bear Peak, located just behind the cityā€™s iconic rock formationā€”the Flatironsā€”and the summit was only three miles from my front door. It looked nearly vertical, but I knew that hiking trails led to the top, from a trailhead I could see from where I stood. The mountain beckoned me with a concentration of adventurous western spirit and a oneness with wilderness, reasons that draw so many to great open spaces. I was, in that moment, very glad to be at the foot of this peak.

But I soon got so busy trying to make friends, refind common ground with my ex, and ride and race bikes that I never so much as touched that trail to Bear Peak.

Then, in my tenth month of living in Boulder, on July 20, 2019, I was hit by a driver while riding my bike, and I nearly died.

The next time I saw Bear Peak was when I came home from a three-month hospital stay, newly paraplegic. My left leg was paralyzed, and I was healing from 35 broken bones, internal bleeding, and collapsed lungs. It took me six minutes to walk 100 feet from my condoā€™s parking lot to the front door. I relied on crutches and a heavy brace that ran from under my foot to the top of my thigh, locking my knee to give me a peg leg. At the time, I was no longer worried about anything other than getting through each day with less pain.

As I healed, and the pain slowly began to ease, I started thinking of physical goals. I wanted to get rid of the massive leg brace. Then I wanted to be able to walk without crutches. My therapists said it would be a whileā€”maybe yearsā€”before I could achieve these benchmarks.

I fell back on my years of experience as an athlete and dedicated myself to my fitness. For months Iā€™d wheel myself into the gym in a wheelchair and lift weights from a seated position. Iā€™d swim laps with my paralyzed leg dragging limply behind me. I eventually started pedaling a spin bike, and my fiancĆ©e would come home early from skiing or mountain biking to walk with me around our neighborhood. We were in a trauma-induced truce and joked that it was important for her to ā€œwalk her Bernie,ā€ my nickname.

As I gained strength, I started to leave the wheelchair behind and walk more. The giant KAFO (knee-ankle-foot orthotic) brace didnā€™t allow me to lift my foot using my knee, so ambulating with it strained my trunk muscles, causing a painful soreness. My first major goal, then, was to develop enough quad strength to unlock the braceā€™s knee joint, which would mean relying on my own muscles to keep my leg from buckling and using my hip flexors to lift my foot.

Iā€™d unlock the knee, grab my crutches, and walk laps around the living room. The cat was perpetually confused by this behavior, especially when Iā€™d unexpectedly tumble to the floor. I fell a lot, and it was always scary. Everyone on my care team constantly reminded me that what might be an inconvenience to someone else could have a significant impact on me, because circulation in my paralyzed limb was greatly impaired, so even lesser injuries would take a long time to heal, increasing the possibility of infection. I worried about nicks and would run my hands up and down my sensory-deprived leg to check for broken bones when I found myself unexpectedly on the ground, regardless of how seemingly inconsequential the fall.

When I was certain that I knew how to regain my feet after a fall, I moved the show outside. On one early attempt to leave the pavement, I spectacularly yard-saled in the middle of a wide, smooth dirt road. This happened during the earliest days of COVID, and after making my fiancƩe take a video of me lying on the ground, splayed out but unhurt, I quickly clamored to my feet so we could keep our distance from other masked walkers.

Spring turned to summer, my confidence grew, and I felt safe walking alone. I started using trekking poles instead of crutches and gave myself the goal of walking ten kilometers by the end of summer. I achieved this goal in August 2020. Around the same time, I finally made it across the street to the trailhead. The lower trails werenā€™t too exciting, but it immediately became clear that the network rising to the top of Bear Peak offered a lot to explore.

All the walking and my dedication to physical therapy paid off. In September, I transitioned to a lightweight, below-the-knee AFO, an ankle-foot orthosis.ĢżThe new equipment dramatically increased my mobility. Throughout that fall and winter, I methodically extended my hiking range and pushed my limits on harder terrain, venturing onto uneven trails with ample vertical gain.

As the second COVID summer wore on, I hiked every weekend, often alone or sometimes accompanied by my new girlfriend. I was soon familiar with every rock and root, and gave directions to other hikers. I slowly edged my way farther up the hill and kept increasing my distance. One weekend, looking for new places to go, I turned left at a junction where I usually turned right and found myself at the base of Fern Canyon, on a short trail that rises steeply up a slot carved into Bear Peakā€™s flank. At the base, the trail follows the bottom of an exposed rock dihedral that Iā€™d been looking up at from my home for three years. I touched it with a sense of wonder and disbelief.

The canyon was very steep, requiring me to occasionally toss my poles ahead so I could clamber forward on all fours. In many other places, Iā€™d step up as high as I could with my right foot, using the strong muscles in that leg to ascend. Then Iā€™d match my feet and repeat the process. The muscles in my left hip were too weak to let me pick that foot up more than a few inches. On that first foray, I only made it two-tenths of a mile up the canyon before deciding I was out of my comfort zone. I retreated.

A few weeks later, I returned to the canyon, hiking a little farther. Back home, I pulled out a map and scrutinized the peak, glancing back and forth between the topo lines and the mountain across the street. I decided Iā€™d try to reach a prominent saddle a mile below the summit.

One August afternoon in 2021, I got there. From the saddle, you can look down at Boulder, sprawling from the hills to the plains to the east. The summit rose steeply to the south.

My summit bid happened on a whim in September. Fern Canyon remained hard, but I knew what to expect. There were plenty of other people on the trail, including a tiny baby in a backpack. I was listening to an audiobook of World War Z, and right about the time Todd Wainio described the ineffectual military bloat that failed to stop the dead at the Battle of Yonkers, I reached the saddle and turned south to tackle the last mile to the summit.

That ultimate stretch was new to me and took more than an hour. It was much steeper than it looked from my balcony. My hip flexors screamed in agony with each step, and I could feel my right gluteā€”the only one I can feelā€”seizing into a baseball-size knot as I neared the peak.

But this time, the view really was worth the effort.

The height was dizzying and wonderfulā€”there was the local high school, and our brewpubā€”but it also showed me things I hadnā€™t anticipated: There, also, was the spot where Iā€™d fought for my life in a roadside ditch. There was the hospital where Iā€™d been saved. There was the clinic where I still go for physical therapy twice a week. There was the road where just 18 months prior Iā€™d fallen like a fawn taking shaky first steps. There, to the south, was Denver, where Iā€™d spent three months in three different hospitals. Arrayed below me were the thousands of trees Iā€™d walked past, miraculously on my own two feet, on the monthslong journey to reach these heights. From that perch, sitting with my legs dangling off of a rock, I could see my whole life in Coloradoā€”tragic and triumphant.

I wish Iā€™d gotten up there sooner. I couldnā€™t believe Iā€™d finally made it.

The post Hiking the Mountain in My Backyard Became the Crux of My Recovery appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

Iā€™d rehearsed the speech several times the night before, but the judge still had to ask me to slow down as I read my statement. As I addressed the court, the driver who hit me more than two years prior wasnā€™t in my field of vision, but I could still feel him off to my left and I wondered if my words would impact him, or anyone. I wondered if friends and supporters watching the proceedings via video feed would be able to see both of us at the same time. I wondered if the few friends Iā€™d asked to attend in person could see how much my hands were shaking.

In July 2019, on an unusually gloomy afternoon in Boulder, Colorado, the assailant drove his old van into me. The driver fled and left me in a roadside ditch with injuries so severe that I very nearly died: internal bleeding, collapsed lungs, 35 broken bones, a concussion, and a spinal-cord injury that paralyzed my left leg and some organs. By grit and luckā€”or maybe due to a higher powerā€”I became a rare example of what happens when a vanĢżsmashes into a cyclist and somehow doesnā€™t cause death.

Iā€™ve been emotionally unprepared for everything thatā€™s happened since that day and therefore shouldnā€™t have been surprised by the feelings I experienced when, after nearly two and a half years, I confronted my attacker in court. But I turned out to be unprepared for that moment, too.

With relative speed, police located the vehicle and impounded it, but the vanā€™s owner denied knowledge of a crash. He also obstinately refused to explain how pieces of his turn signal ended up at the crash site, or to provide any explanation about who was driving, if not him. The police finally issued an arrest warrant on November 9, 2020, but there was no immediateĢżarrest and no meaningful update.

At some point during the process, I lost hope for any kind of justice and became resigned that this would be yet another driver to deal mortal wounds to a cyclist and get away with it. And that Iā€™d be stuck paying for the results of his destructive behavior in the form of never-ending medical bills that arrive at my home.

I stopped sending periodic queries to the Boulder district attorney and focused on things I could control. Just as I had once dedicated myself to the training that let me compete in elite-level track racingā€”international races and national championship eventsā€”I now diligently worked on improving my physical condition, limited though it was. I went to various kinds of physical therapy as many as eight times a week and sought out doctors to help me relieve the chronic pain resulting from my lopsided paraplegia. (Today Iā€™ve made progress but still dream of being pain-free.) I bought an e-gravel bike and went on rides that were once routine but felt novel after months of being forced to stick to flat paths. I walked so much that I, without any sensation in oneĢżfoot, gave myself a stress fracture in the calcaneus bone, my first major setback in the process of recovery. Still, I trained all summer to hike my first fourteener, and in September, I reached the summit of 14,065-foot Mount Bierstadt.

Six more months passed before the driver was pulled overā€”by chanceā€”on June 19, 2021, for an unrelated traffic violation and taken into custody. Without ceremony, the DAā€™s office emailed to say heā€™d been arrested.

He appeared in court the following week for a procedural check-in that I watched via video conference. He looked exactly as Iā€™d pictured him: middle-aged, white, with a paunch and graying stubble that spread over world-weary wrinkles. He looked very serious, staring intently at the camera, his eyes glassy and unblinking as the judge worked through a number of other cases. I wondered if he thought he would get away with the crime. Or if he truly believed he hadnā€™t done anything wrong. Of course, he wasnā€™t called on to speak, so I continued to wonder.

With the DAā€™s office, I discussed the charges against him, the possibility of trial, the possibility of a plea deal, and various options for punishment. When asked, I said I hoped heā€™d never be able to drive again. And I asserted that he should bear full and ongoing financial responsibility for my care, though I knew financial remuneration is usually part of a civil action and oneĢżthat I almost certainly wouldnā€™t pursueā€”this was a man without insurance and without resources worth trying to sue for.

The punishment of not driving was not an option available to the court, given the specific charges the driver pleaded guilty to: leaving the scene of an accident, careless driving, and criminal attempt to leave the scene of an accident. The disciplinary actions that were available ranged from restorative justiceā€”speaking to teenagers about safe driving or some such thingā€”to prison.

After a couple months of deliberation, during which I voiced my wishes, which varied from day to day, the DA made him an offer: plead guilty to reduced charges and accept a sentence of two years in prison, plus parole and restitution, which everyone agreed I was unlikely to receive. His lawyer signaled that the deal was preferable to a trial, and the court set a date for arraignment.

I wasnā€™t required to address the court before his formal sentencing. In fact my attorney advised against it, telling me that most of his clients come away disappointed to see how little impact their words have. Despite his advice, I planned to speak, knowing that the driver would receive a previously agreed-upon sentence. I would expect nothing from the court but still wanted to stateĢżon the record, and for the larger public, how much this criminal had taken from me.

I arrived in court, in person this time, on October 22, 2021. I read remarks to the presiding judge, describing my initial trauma, the physical pain I live with, and other chronic symptoms of my spinal-cord injuryā€”permanent paralysis of one leg, my bladder, bowel, and sexual functionā€”the cost of managing it all, and also my conviction that there wasnā€™t much justice happening that day.

The driver, who spent two and a half years on the lam, was then given the opportunity to speak, and he shuffled to the lectern. ā€œIā€™m sorry to everybody thatā€™s involved in this incident. Iā€™m taking full responsibility for this action, and I would like to apologize to Andrew,ā€ he stammered before stepping away. I had no expectations for him either, of course, but his few words failed to reckon with any of my experience: the way he tortured my loved ones while I struggled to cling to life in the early days, or the harm heā€™d caused me physically and emotionally. He didnā€™t attempt to offer an explanation for fleeing or lying to law enforcement. He sat down in the empty jury box to await the sheriffā€™s deputies, who would take him into custody.

I took a little comfort in the judgeā€™s agreement with my most important point: that a sentence of two years in prison and parole doesnā€™t help me and does nothing to prevent him from driving into someone else when he gets out. She agreed that he will be out of prison long before my life sentence ends.

The gavel came down, and I left to get drunk.

I donā€™t know what I expected from the arraignment, but I felt very raw after court. A friend visiting from out of state observed that most of the people we talked to about the proceedings over the next several days projected the same set of feelings onto me: they said things like ā€œIt must be such a relief to have this behind you!ā€ or ā€œIsnā€™t it nice to have some closure?ā€ or ā€œItā€™s not enough, but arenā€™t you happy heā€™s going to jail?ā€

I felt none of those things.

I felt sad. I felt angrier than I had in months, and not at the driver, oddly, but at the criminal justice systemā€™s utter inability to mete out just punishment. Most of all, I felt hopeless in the face of the huge bills related to my rehabilitationā€”approaching $20,000 per year, after my health insuranceā€™s contributions, for each of the last two years and with no indication of recedingā€”now knowing with some certainty that Iā€™d gotten all the help I was going to get. Itā€™s a lot to be 37 years old, looking ahead to another 60 or 70 years of life, knowing that my ability to take care of myself will depend on my ability to stay in high-paying jobs that offer good private health insurance.

Worst of all, while so many around me seemed glad that there was some punishmentā€”a prison sentence at that!ā€”for a driver who hit a cyclist when so many are let offĢżwithout consequence, I kept thinking about how nothing had changed for me. I was just as paralyzed as I was the day before the arraignment, my hopes for full recovery just as dim, and my needs just as great.

I did my best to take these comments as misguided well-wishes. But my inner New Yorker finally broke free when someone remarked, ā€œYou must be happy itā€™s all over.ā€

ā€œItā€™s not over, and I donā€™t have anything to be happy about,ā€ I said.

It wasnā€™t kindly put, but it is my truth.

The only fitting punishment for a person whoā€™s shown such little interest in being a safe driver is to take them off the road forever, which I stated in court. But in this country, we give such priority to cars that a punishment of that nature is deemed unthinkably severe. Therefore, the best solution our society has is to put him in jail. He will likely be able to drive again soon after his release, and I can only hope that when he does drive again, he doesnā€™t crash into another person. If he does, it will be entirely because the justice system was unable to keep him off the road.

Early in this ordeal, I was predisposed to find a way to forgive this person. But with all that Iā€™ve lost, how can I forgive someone who doesnā€™t acknowledge their actions, even as they plead guilty?

And how will his incarceration restore function to my body? How will his time in prison improve my situation in any way at all?

Of course, it will not.

In surviving this assault, Iā€™ve been given a life sentence, and his two-year sentence will be a lot shorter. The unfairness is something that I will have to learn to accept. Iā€™ll also learn to live with the discomfort I feel toward the justice system. Maybe Iā€™ll forgive my attacker once that work is done. Or maybe not.

The post The Driver Who Hit Me Got Two Years in Prison. But I Got a Life Sentence. appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

Hereā€™s what you did when you hit me with your van. And, yes, I understand that it almost certainly wasnā€™t you who hit me, but since what happened to me was caused by an unidentified assailant who was likely driving while either distracted, drunk, high, using a phone, speeding, or just angry that there was a cyclist on the road, and as you have probably driven in one or more of those states, this is about you and what you did to meā€”andĢżwhat you could do to another cyclist.

You plowed into me from behind when I was riding on a nearly empty road. Your speed was so fast relative to mine that I was guaranteed severe injury, despite my safety tokens: a helmet, a blinky light, and a defensive postureĢżon the right edge of the wide shoulder. Your van hit me with such violence that pieces of your vehicle and mine scattered along the grassy embankment. The impact flung my body through the air, and I landed at the bottom of a roadside ditch.Ģż

The blunt impact sent force vectors through my body, snapping my right collarbone and exploding my left shoulder. It broke every single one of my ribs. And my sternum. It collapsed both of my lungs. You shattered my left ankle, broke my tibia and fibula, and snapped my femur. You crushed my pelvis and caused internal bleeding so severe that my blood pressure didnā€™t stabilize for days, even after emergency surgery and pint after pint of transfused blood. You fractured vertebrae in my neck and back and damaged my spinal cord, paralyzing my left leg and compromising my bladder and bowel function.

That would have been enough,Ģżlifetimesā€™ worth of trauma to pass to an unsuspecting 34-year-old man heading home to spend the evening with his fiancĆ©e after an afternoon of training for the seasonā€™s last big bike race.

But youā€™re a special kind of cruel, so you drove away.

You left me to die.

And I would have died if Tim Gillach, a cyclist and insurance salesmanĢżfrom Coloradoā€™s Front Range,Ģżhadnā€™t caught a fleeting glimpse of my face as he drove past. Although he wasnā€™t certain heā€™d seen a person, he turned his car around to look again. He spotted the red bike you destroyed. He saw a helmet. He pulled over.

He found me lying in the grass, without any visible wounds or bleedingĢżbut in obvious distress. ā€œI saw a man struggling for every single breath,ā€ he told me later, describing my left leg as ā€œpointing every which way.ā€ HeĢżtried to reassure me as we waited for the ambulance.

ā€œDonā€™t worry,ā€ he told me,Ģżrecalling his own brutal experience.ĢżJust a few months prior, a distracted driver had hit GillachĢżwith her car while heĢżwas riding his bike near his home in Arvada, Colorado. The crash broke his pelvis. ā€œThey put my 58-year-old body back together, and they will put your body back together,ā€ he said to me. ā€œJust keep breathing.ā€

The first person charged with putting me back together was Dr. Laughlin McCollester, attending emergency physician at the Boulder Community Health emergency department. ā€œYou were clinging to life,ā€ he told me recently. ā€œYou would not have made it another half-hour without a blood transfusion and other interventions.ā€ When he first got the call that I was about to arrive in his emergency departmentĢżand heard about how Iā€™d been hit, he knew heā€™d be looking at a severely injured patient. ā€œWe had to prioritize the life-threatening issues, what would kill you first,ā€ he said. ā€œIf we lost your airway, if we didnā€™t get those chest tubes in fast, that kind of stuff. You were so weak and so depleted, you required maximum aggressive care.ā€

McCollester pointsĢżto the laws of physics as the main explanation for the severe level of injuries sustained in a bike-versus-car crash. ā€œIt comes down to kinetic energy, the energy inherent in a mass thatā€™s moving,ā€ he says. ā€œIf you have a van thatā€™s traveling at a high rate of speed,Ģżthat is an incredible amount of kinetic energy.ā€ When a human body absorbs that amount of kinetic energy, force vectors travel through bone and tissue, causing all manner of blunt-force injuries as they go.Ģż

In the emergency room, McCollester immediately cut into both sides of my rib cage to relieve pressure, helping my lungs reinflate. He and his colleaguesĢżinserted two tubes to drain blood that had been collecting in my chest. I couldnā€™t breathe on my own, so they sedated me and then intubated me, forcingĢża tube down my throat and into my lungs, before completing extensive scans of my whole body.

Their full-body images revealed catastrophic damage: so many broken bones that they decided to fly me to a bigger facility. ā€œYou needed five to seven surgeons working on you at once,ā€ he told me, adding that I was one of the three worst blunt-force trauma patients heā€™d treated in his nearly 20-year career. With all of my emergency care focused on stabilizing my breathing and controlling the bleeding, it wasnā€™t until later thatĢżdoctors realized my spinal cord had been damaged as well.

My only memory of the flight to Denver Health is the sound of thumping helicopter rotors, which came to me in drug-induced fever dreams over the following weeks and blended elements of reality with nightmarish inventions of my mind. They always ended with me stuck on my back, unable to move. My loved ones took comfort in knowing I wouldnā€™t remember the horrors of the ICU:ĢżThe breathing tube that stayed in my throat for nine days and would give me coughing fits that felt like I was choking and gasping for air. The restraints that kept me in a fixed position in my bed hour after hour. The ten surgeries I endured over 17 days to fix my shoulder, pelvis (a common injury in bike-versus-car crashes, McCollester notes), femur, tibia, ankle, and spinal column. Being deprived of any nutritionā€”not even from a feeding tubeā€”for six days. When I was weaned off sedation and came to eight days later, I remember endless thirst.ĢżI wanted a drink of waterĢżbut wasnā€™t allowed any for several more days until speech pathologists helped me relearn to swallow. It was almost two weeks before I began to claw myself away from the drugsā€™ effects and understand the reality of what had happened to me.

Even thenĢżthe near constant anesthesia and pain meds made me crazy. On a few occasions, I attempted to pull out the many tubes going into my body. Once, when Iā€™d been granted a respiteĢżfrom my cloth wrist restraints, I successfully pulled a feeding tube from my nose and remember the satisfying feeling of it coming freeā€”and the blinding pain of it being forced back in. An ICU nurse who helped take care of me said recently that my erratic behavior is common for patients on strong painkillersĢżand sedatives. What seemed normal to the medical staff was deeply unsettling to my family, who had never seen me come so unhinged.

My hallucinations were even more unnerving. In one memorable incident, I told my family that the nurses were beating me up. Gloria and Eric, my fiancĆ©e and brother, insisted they werenā€™t, and it took months for me to realize that, in the early days after the crash, my body was so broken that any attempt to touch me or move me resulted in anvil-dropped-on-the-foot levels of discomfort. On a pain scale of one to ten, my existence was a constant 15; itā€™s no wonder I thought the nurses were secretly torturing me.Ģż

But itā€™s the work that was needed to repair my back that now haunts me. I remember when I first realized that the warm, stubbly mass in the bed with me was my leg. Gloria told me recently that when she, my dad, and my brother initially explained my spinal-cord injury to me, I told them that I already had a sense that something of the sort was wrong; thatĢżmass attached to my leftĢżhip didnā€™t move when I told it to.Ģż

The violent impact with your vehicle did so much damage to my spine that it required two separate operationsā€”one from the back to fuse itĢżand another from the front to remove fragments of bone and to insert metal cages. Between the two procedures, I got an infection. The resulting illness, though not unusual for a very sick person in a hospital, delayed the final operation by five days. Would my leg still be paralyzed if the doctors had been able to perform that surgery sooner? I wouldnā€™t have to wonderĢżif you hadnā€™t driven into me.

After nearly a month at Denver Health, I was transferred to a long-term-care hospital to rest and heal ahead of rehab.Ģż

The first time I stood, it was thanks to an occupational therapist, a person half my size, who pulled me to my feet. It was the hardest thing Iā€™ve ever done. Standing. I have more than three decades of experience being upright but only managed a few seconds before collapsing back into bed.Ģż

I was eventually transferred to Craig Hospital, a facility just outside Denver that specializes in rehabilitating spinal-cord and traumatic brain injuries, both common among cyclists who areĢżhit by cars. The therapists there taught me to walk using forearm crutches and a brace that extendsĢżfrom my foot to my upper thigh. It locks my knee, essentially giving me a peg leg. The nurses and doctors helped me figure out the right cocktail of laxatives to get my bowelsā€”neurologically stunned from the traumaā€”moving regularly but not urgently. I learned how to insert a catheter into my penis since my bladder was (and remains) stubbornly napping, and when I could shakily ambulate on my crutches and brace, albeit not yet fast enough to safely cross a street, they sent me home.

Now, more than nine months since the crash, I still wake up in pain every day. The way I walk, stiff legged and with a severe jolt, causes imbalance and a tightness that pulls on muscles, ligaments, bones, and joints throughout my lower back, abdomen, and hips. It all hurts like crazy. Sometimes Iā€™m super stiff. Other times my tailbone burns for no apparent reasonĢżor my hip aches from the overly tight muscles pulling bones violently together. Iā€™m barely able to reach my left arm above my head. And thereā€™s nerve pain that constantly sparkles, radiates, pulses, and tingles up and down my paralyzed left leg. Itā€™s worse in the cold.Ģż

Four manual-therapy and bodywork appointments (now only two, due to COVID-19) each week help to ameliorate the aching, stabbing, and burning, but theyā€™ve never come close to making it go away. I rarely take pain meds, but early on, when the pain was worse, I was told over the phone that one of my doctors didnā€™t want to refill a prescription for Tramadol. Since the doctor wouldnā€™t medicate me, I politely asked her assistant if she would like to take some of the pain on herself. I clicked off my phone and realized that this is exactly how a person could get addicted to opioids and turn to illicit sources, just to not hurt.Ģż

In physical therapy, Iā€™ve been relearning to walk. First, therapists helped me master my brace. Then they heaped on exercises to help strengthen my leg and correct imbalances. NowĢżIā€™m spending more and more time with my braceā€™s knee joint unlocked, gingerly stepping across my living room, catching myself on my crutches when my fledgling quad strength inevitably fails. I practiced minute movements in a waist-deep pool for six months, and I walk on a treadmill designed to reduce gravity, environments where I can confidently take steps without my crutches. Iā€™ve taken to calling the world outside the poolĢżā€œthe heavy place,ā€ a world where I have to roll myself around in a wheelchair any time Iā€™m not strapped into the thigh-high brace.

And despite all that, Iā€™m lucky: my injury is low in my spine, partially hindering my left legĢżbut leaving me with normal function in my right leg, my arms, and my most important organs. From my time at Craig Hospital, I know a lot of other spinal-cord patients who are much more impaired.Ģż

There are also injuries that cause a different kind of pain. I recently asked Emily Markley, a psychologist who treated me at Craig, how getting hit by your car might affect a person. She ran through some common symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder: hypervigilance, recurring memories of an incident, and avoidance, as well as other typical effects like survivorā€™sĢżguiltĢżand substance abuse. Just when I started to pat myself on the back, checking off all the symptoms Iā€™d steered clear of, she started talking about difficulty finding joy.

I love riding my bike. Or, I loved it. I canā€™t keep the tense straight anymore. Itā€™s been so long since Iā€™ve pedaled outside that, despite the classic adage, Iā€™m worried I wonā€™t remember how. I spend hours thinking about how Iā€™ll manage to get my near useless left leg onto a pedalā€”and then safely back on the ground. When you hit me with your van, I was on my way home from training at the Boulder Valley Velodrome. I was halfway through an exciting season of racing my track bike all over the country. I was riding well and spending time with friends.

Now my racing career is over. Worse than that, my lifeā€”a life that was centered around cycling and being outsideā€”is permanently altered. I began racing bikes in high school. Before this crash, I rode my bike six or seven days a week. Without bikes to connect me to friends, and without the ability to do much outdoors at all, I often feel isolated, lonely.Ģż

One source of comfort has been sharing my story. My friends say my fight to regain strength is inspiring, and they thank me for my openness. And while Iā€™m glad to offer strength to anyone who may be facing a challenge, thatā€™s not why Iā€™m sharing this story. My goal is to make you a safer driver.Ģż

I know itā€™s highly unlikely that you hit me with your car, but I also know that itā€™s likely you exhibit dangerous behaviors when drivingā€”every driver does from time to time. So Iā€™m sharing my story to show you what you could do to your friend, coworker, neighbor, or just some person who doesnā€™t deserve to become paralyzed as a result of your carelessness. Iā€™m sharing my story so that every time you drive over the speed limit, glance down from the road to see a notification on your phone, donā€™t quite make it through the intersection before yellow turns to red, or get behind the wheel after a boozy dinner, you will think of me living with chronic pain and struggling on my crutches, and maybe youā€™ll slow down a littleĢżand refocus on the road.

I used to be whole and able-bodied, same as you. When you get behind the wheel, you have incredible power to rob someone of their body. Iā€™m sharing my story to remind you of your responsibility to drive safely, lest you end up maiming someone like me and living with the guilt of causing their lifelong disability or death.

The post To the Driver Who Hit Me and Ran appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

It’s no secret that cyclists like to knock back the occasional brewā€”a round-up of the best bike bars wouldn’t have made much sense if they didn’tā€”which is why we decided to put together a list of the best places to catch some high-level racing and have a good time. Cyclocross, which features a seemingly perfect mix of spectator-friendly loop courses, mud, and crazed fans, is especially well represented. But big races like the Tour de France and the Philly Race offer plenty chances to catch pro-level road racing and even do some riding yourself. Whichever style of riding you prefer, we suspect you’ll find an event here worth celebrating. Responsibly, of course.

The Tour of Flanders

Beer, frites, and cobblestones

When Belgian Nick Nuyens won the 2011 edition of the Tour of Flandersā€”and beat favored Swiss rider Fabian Cancellaraā€”fans reacted as if he had saved his countryā€™s honor. The next day, the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad put Nuyens on the cover and called him ā€œOur Savior.ā€ Which is all to say, in Belgium, they take their bike racing seriously.

They also take their beer seriously. Each year, drinking begins early in the morning as riders depart Ghent for a 150-mile-plus lap around the Flanders. If youā€™re willing to do a little General Lee-style drivingā€”and have a competent navigatorā€”itā€™s possible to view the race on several of the legendary cobbled bergs, or hills. Start your day at the Grand Depart in Bruge and watch the race roll out while you enjoy a few waffles or frites, served properly in a paper cone. The debate over which of the nation’s five thousand frites vendors is best never ends, but like bagels in New York City, you can’t really go wrong.

Wash those down with the dayā€™s first beers at , then rally to some of the most famous bergs: Oude Kwaremont, Koppenburg, Valkenberg, and Eikenmolen. For the 2012 race, the legendary cobbled hill of the Muur-Kapelmuur was eliminated in favor of finishing circuits around the town of Oudenaarde (also home to the ). Itā€™s difficult to get close to the finish line, but any bar you findā€” is one of our favoritesā€”will have the race on TV. Buy the locals a round and they might even translate the commentary for you. For a more organized trip, arranges travel to Flanders as well as several other spring classics.

The Manayunk Wall

With a 17 percent grade, thousands of spectators, and one of the best pro fields on U.S. shores, it’s no wonder the Wall makes Philly police nervous

In the grandest traditions of commerce and American bike racing, this race has held many names in its 28-year history. These days, it’s a mouthful: TD Bank Philadelphia International Cycling Championship. Or otherwise, the Philly Race.

Racing on the 14.4-mile main circuit, which the men’s field completes 10 times, kicks off at 10:45 A.M. and draws a crowd of around 300,000. The place to be is on the Manayunk Wall, a half-mile climb with cobble stone sections and grades as steep as 17-percent. In 2011, that they wouldnā€™t tolerate excessive rowdiness. The cops have plenty to manage: Frat-party style drinking, fans dousing riders with booze, viking costumes, and plenty of house parties. Order a pint at Oā€™Brienā€™s Watering Hole, at 320 Lyceum Ave., on The Wall, site of a sprinkler to cool riders. The actual racing is pretty good, too: the UCI gives the Philly Race a ā€œ1.HCā€ designatation, the highest category for a bike race short of a world championship or grand tour. The winner nets $13,500; you get an early-evening hangover. June 3, 2012,

The Red Hook Crit

Because a bunch of guys racing fixies at night in Brooklyn is bound to get rowdy

True, the has lost some of its under-the-radar appealā€”the days when the race location was made public only hours before the start are goneā€”but it’s still held at night, and three-time winner Dan Chabanov is a former bike messenger. Racers must use fixed-gear bikes with drop handlebars (and wear helmets). Before you head over to the course at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook, prime yourself at The Brooklyn Icehouse, 318 Van Brunt Street. Drinking isn’t allowed on site, but the hundreds of spectators usually end up at the official after party, fueled this year by race sponsor Sixpoint Brewery (from Brooklyn, of course), at , a beer bar with a chill vibe. Runners can get in on the action, too, with a 5K in the evening before the bikes hit the street. March, 2013

The Berlin Six

We’re not sure whether racing or attending the Berlin Six is more exhausting, but we’d like to find out

Imagine a three-ring circus, complete with the trapeze act, menagerie, and clowns. Then imagine a rock show in the middle of all that. Then imagine a world-class bike race taking place on a banked track surrounding the hubbub. Thatā€™s a six-day race. The format, first conceived in the 19th century, originally had athletes racing for six whole days and nights without a break. (The winner was usually the guy who could stay awake the longest.) These days, racing is limited to evening hours, and the trapeze act has disappeared, but there’s still plenty of action and free-flowing booze. This is Germany, after all, the country that invented the biergarten and the stein krug. Crowds come to watch the riding, but there’s often as much dancing to live music as there is spectating. Held each January and run 97 times since the first edition in 1909, the race has seen Tour de France stars and Olympians compete in recent years. Attending all six nights requires a big commitment to partying, but for those who have less than a week of drinking in them, tickets are available individually each night. January 2013,

CrossVegas

What happens at CrossVegas stays in CrossVegas

, which takes place each September at the cycling trade show known as , is one of the seasonā€™s first major ā€˜cross races. Held at night only minutes from the Las Vegas strip, the combination of early-season dirt and industry energy make for huge, rowdy crowds along the course. Racers without a chance at placing try to pick up dollar bills planted on the course by drunk spectators. And the more you drink, the more thrilling it is to cheer for riders grasping, and occasionally slipping, for a little cash. If you can wrangle an insider connectionā€”and at InterBike, insiders are everywhereā€”head to one of several VIP areas on the course, which are usually stocked with free beer from race sponsor Sierra Nevada. And if Vegas isn’t your bag, consider Louisville, which will host the in January 2013. It could be the biggest bike race party on this side of the Atlantic in years. September 19, 2012,

The Downieville Classic

A five-day fat tire festival that closes with a river jump and live music

This five-day mountain-bike festival includes a downhill event and all-mountain riding, but the centerpiece is the 29-mile point-to-point cross-country race. Tracing Gold Rush-era trails, the race begins in Sierra City, California, tops out at 7,100 feet in the Sierra Nevada range, then drops down to the finish in Downieville. That’s where the party gets going, with racers celebrating their ride at the famed River Jump world championships, held on the Yuba River. Live music, headlined this year by the Saddle Tramps, who will play at The Fire House, starts in the evening, providing a perfect soundtrack to sample some of the local brew. The festival also includes a weekend-long bike expo and street fair. August 1-5, 2012,

The Tour de France

Alpe d’Huez is off the schedule in 2012, but that doesn’t mean the course won’t be crawling with cycling hooligans

Any other year, weā€™d just tell you to head straight to Lā€™Alpe dā€™Huez, but for 2012, the race will bypass the iconic climb for only the third time since 1976. Instead, the toughest climb looks to be the ascent to Peyragudes, on stage 17 (Thursday, July 19, 2012). Either way, if youā€™re looking for a raucous day of bike racing and boozing, you wonā€™t go wrong by pointing yourself toward any of the major mountain stages. The most dedicated partiersā€”often wearing costumesā€”arrive three or four days before the race comes through, staking out territory along the steepest pitches or sharpest switchbacks. Crowds on flat stages can get rambunctious, but the climbs are particularly rowdy. In 1999, Giuseppe Guerini was knocked from his bike by a spectator on Lā€™Alpe, then won the stage; and in 2001, Lance Armstrong sealed his sixth tour victory there after racing through crushing crowds. Need help traveling to France? There are several tour operators, but is the Tourā€™s official travel agency. June 30 through July 22, 2012

Your Local ‘Cross Race

For those years when saving for a new bike prohibits extensive travel

Blew out the family travel budget on your new road machine? Donā€™t worry, there are plenty of smaller, local cyclocross races with awesome atmospheres. Cyclocross is the fastest-growing segment of bicycle racing for a good reason: whether or not you compete (races are usually between 30 and 45 minutes long for amateurs), or just cheer on your friends, the traditional short course makes for ideal viewing. And, because these are local events, youā€™re likely to know many of the racers and spectators.

Every venue has its own rules, but many allow you to bring your own booze. Toss in a portable grill and think of it as a tailgate, only with hipsters instead of juiced-up frat boys. There are now ā€˜cross races in nearly every state, but these three are among our favorites.

The , in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania mixes ā€˜cross with urban-assault style racing in, you guessed it, a junkyard. Hang out for the free party post-race.

The , in Portland, Oregon, is one of the largest regional ā€˜cross series in the nation and features ten races between September and December, including the Dechutes Brewery Cup, which attracts some of the country’s best riders.

The , in Gloucester, Massachusetts, is part of the legendary Verge New England Cyclocross Championship Series. The race is each October at Stage Fort Park, a beautiful venue overlooking Gloucester’s Harbor. Racing, from the amateurs ranks all the way up through the pros,Ģżis competitive. Drinking is sanctioned in the course-side beer tent.

The Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic

A bike race that’s a little bit like camp for adults

Some race parties are for spectators (see: The Philly Race). This one is for the racers. An eight-stage mountain-bike marathon, held each year in late spring in Central Pennsylvania, the is contested by a handful of hardened racersā€”only about 50 in 2011. But it’s a perfect participant-based race party: If you want to ride hard over rough single track, youā€™ll find plenty of fast competition. How fast? In 2011, Cannondale pro won the menā€™s division, with rider Amanda Carey taking a narrow win on the womenā€™s side. More interested in camping out and enjoying drinks with friends? We won’t begrudge you some soft pedaling to save your legs for the traditional 3-Beer Derby. Most racers stay at the race venue, Seven Mountains Scout Camp, in Centre Hall, Pennsylvania, adding to the spirit of community fun, but if you need a civilization break head into nearby State College. May 27-June 2, 2012,

Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships

The winner’s prize is a tattoo. ‘Nuff said.

Thereā€™s only one rule at this irreverent rolling circus: one gear. Held each year in a new location, it wouldn’t be hard to mistake the Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships for a drinking game surrounded by a bike race. Athletes in six categories, including a new womenā€™s category unveiled last year, race ā€˜cross bikes with single-speed drive trains over a course that combines traditional ā€˜cross features with more whimsical elementsā€”in 2011, racers faced a Le Mans-style start up a steep, muddy incline, a knee-deep water pit, and hip-high log barriers, although the extra fun parts change each year. Overall winners are required to get a SSCXWC tattoo, although last year’s champs refused, sparking a controversy. Not racing? Don a costume and practice your heckling. So far, information on the 2012 event is sketchy, but it looks like the race will be held in Santa Cruz, California.

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