Solo riders word of caution

[nickw1965]

It’s been a while since I posted on the forum as members may remember I had a right hip replacement on April 10th this year.Following on from other members advice and my physio’s I didn’t get back in the saddle until 20th May, riding my local common each morning at 7am.
Felt like a new man with no aches and pains anymore after my morning ride.On Friday 24th woke up to a lovely sunny morning so headed out at 7 over Caesars camp my local ride.I have been riding these trails for 30 years.After a quick run through the woods I did my first drop into a large valley bowl.My last memory was hitting the back brake then all went black.I opened my eyes to find myself half way down the bank with bike on my legs.After my head cleared I went to stand only to find my right leg hanging to the side,snapped right femur.
As my situation sunk in my breathing worsened.4 broken ribs and collapsed lung.
I looked around my bike and couldn’t see my phone so searched around.My lifesaver was it was under me.
So let’s cut to the chase.I made a few calls and managed to guide my hysterical eldest daughter to find me hidden away within the woods.It wasn’t until 11:30 after 2 ambulances,2 fire engines that I was stretchered from the woods to Frimley park hospital.By this time drugged up to the max.
On Monday 27th my leg was plated and my chest cavity drained re inflating my lung.Finally discharged on Friday 31st.
Please don’t read this post thinking I’m looking for sympathy, because I ain’t.I was so bloody lucky to get out of this still breathing.I rode solo with only my mobile and good luck on my side.My family didn’t know my route.
The funniest part of this was I had an appointment to be discharged on that Friday of my crash after my hip op.And before you ask good news bike all in one piece.

RIDE SAFE FOLKS

 

[R120]

Thanks for sharing, and hope you are doing ok - this is a subject that often crosses my mind, as I ride alone a lot of the time. I usually share my location with my wife on my phone so she can see where I am if I dont check in, and I believe Strava has a similar function.

I had a big off 3 weeks ago that landed me in A and E - luckily I was able to ride off the mountain and back to my car, but I was deep in the Surrey Hills on a Tuesday afternoon, with not many other people about, it really got me thinking, and I definitely got away with one as there is no way I would have got off the hill unaided once the shock and adrenalin had worn off.

The ANGI device from Specilaized looks interesting for solo rides - designed for exactly the type of situation you found yourself in

INTRODUCING ANGI | Specialized.com

 

[Gary]

That's a gnarly story
Wishing you a full recovery

 

[nickw1965]

That's a gnarly story
Wishing you a full recovery

Cheers Gary.Counting days till next ride

 

[nickw1965]

Thanks for sharing, and hope you are doing ok - this is a subject that often crosses my mind, as I ride alone a lot of the time. I usually share my location with my wife on my phone so she can see where I am if I dont check in, and I believe Strava has a similar function.

I had a big off 3 weeks ago that landed me in A and E - luckily I was able to ride off the mountain and back to my car, but I was deep in the Surrey Hills on a Tuesday afternoon, with not many other people about, it really got me thinking, and I definitely got away with one as there is no way I would have got off the hill unaided once the shock and adrenalin had worn off.

The ANGI device from Specilaized looks interesting for solo rides - designed for exactly the type of situation you found yourself in

INTRODUCING ANGI | Specialized.com

I promised family that I will fit tracker when fit to ride again.

 

[khorn]

I wish you a speedy recovery and as I also often ride deep into the polish forest totally alone, I always take no chances and rather walk a gnarly trail. Garmin has a “Livetrack” feature where you can share your live track and I do that with my wife. Garmin also has a crash detection that can send a warning to a selected person.

Karsten

 

[aarfeldt]

I like to ride alone...but I know the risk, and allways tell the wife where I ride.

My Garmin watch has a new emergency feature, which will send a text message to a dedicated receiver, if it senses a crash.
Don't know if it works, but it might be better than nothing.

Hope for a fast recovery.

Smashed my hand 2 years ago.
After +30 years of motorcycle roadracing, this was the first real accident with broken bones.
My biggest concern was my MTB'ing would suffer....it did not after some month

 

[nickw1965]

Nearly forgot my gift from the hospital. Don’t think I will be framing these x rays.
Looking at the fixed leg I’m sure they went down diy centre for the bits

 

[nickw1965]

Nearly forgot my gift from the hospital. Don’t think I will be framing these x rays.
Looking at the fixed leg I’m sure they went down diy centre for the bits

View attachment 14786

View attachment 14787

That’s my new hip by the way

 

[R120]

I am not far from you so hit me up when you are back on two wheels an need a riding buddy

 

[Titch mortimer]

I have had a hip replacement and looking at your xray that hip looks like it stood up to a good deal trauma whilst your leg got all the damage, its always on my mind when I go out on my own

 

[nickw1965]

I have had a hip replacement and looking at your xray that hip looks like it stood up to a good deal trauma whilst your leg got all the damage, its always on my mind when I go out on my own

Mate believe it or not the hip stayed locked in.This was 6 weeks after op.Im told by surgeons that the force to snap a femur is huge.That said I proved that a hip replacement once settled is as good as new .

 

[Dax]

Wow, that's a hell of a story, really glad you made it out of that alive, although that leg looks incredibly painful.

Sobering.

 

[Jamsxr]

Wow, thanks for sharing and glad you’re on the mend, and more importantly, your bikes is okay!

While off traveling Europe on my motorbike I used the ‘find my friends’ app, works great but maybe turn it off if you find yourself on a Stag Do ?

When riding on my tod I don’t tend to push the boundaries, but to be fair, there are always circumstances out of your control so it’s good to be prepared, just in case..

 

[Pdoz]

I promised family that I will fit tracker when fit to ride again.

If you're considering satellite trackers , I've been disappointed with my garmin inreach mini - I suspect it's too compact to reliably get a satellite signal. If it's mounted in the top of my camelback I'd be lucky to record 2/3 location messages, and even less if mounted on my chest. I doubt it would transmit a signal if I was lying unconscious at the bottom of a gully.

I went for the inreach hoping the text function would be good enough for me to leave the satphone at home when I'm well beyond mobile range. It's very much a compromise, and I'd be buying the larger one if I replaced it.

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

Crazy story! Thanks for sharing.

All the best in your recovery

 

[iXi]

I like to ride alone...but I know the risk, and allways tell the wife where I ride.

My Garmin watch has a new emergency feature, which will send a text message to a dedicated receiver, if it senses a crash.
Don't know if it works, but it might be better than nothing.

Hope for a fast recovery.

Smashed my hand 2 years ago.
After +30 years of motorcycle roadracing, this was the first real accident with broken bones.
My biggest concern was my MTB'ing would suffer....it did not after some month

I have the garmin 245 and it works. I came off the other day, fortunately only scratches and bruising but as soon as I hit the deck the watch started buzzing with incident detection and fired off a text.

To the OP, speedy recovery mate.

 

[Pendo]

Wishing you a speedy recovery, that looked nasty.
When we ride into the Aussie bush, we take an Eperb. We've come across enough snakes to realize that if one of us is bitten, the other will need to do first aid, not ride off and get help.
Having a look at that Specialized Angi device, I think that's awesome, Essential for solo rides no matter how far from home. If you come off and knock yourself out it will get help, clever.

 

[Mountie]

Wishing you a speedy recovery. I live in Canada about 2 hours from the Rocky Mountains I worry about riding alone but for a slightly different reason. I like to head out about 6am and usually run into a lot of wildlife, for the past two weeks I’ve had to look out for Cougars they have been spotted on our trails by multiple users . Last year I almost got side swiped by two six foot deer when I startled them on the trail and they jumped the wrong way. The ones that worry me most are mountain lions and bears we lost a couple of riders to those over the past couple of years. Maybe the threat of wildlife is why they give us a higher pedal assist speed????? Lol

 

[HORSPWR]

Wishing you a speedy recovery, that looked nasty.
When we ride into the Aussie bush, we take an Eperb. We've come across enough snakes to realize that if one of us is bitten, the other will need to do first aid, not ride off and get help.
Having a look at that Specialized Angi device, I think that's awesome, Essential for solo rides no matter how far from home. If you come off and knock yourself out it will get help, clever.

I regularly ride alone and on a multitude of different tracks, my wife has no idea where I am. I'm pretty much counting on her logging on to a PC and using "find my iphone" to locate my lifeless body when I haven't turned up for dinner. It's funny you mention snakes, our trails here in Central Australia are littered with some of the most venomous snakes on the planet.

Last summer I rounded a corner at speed to only notice at the last minute a Western Brown sitting squarely in my line, I shit my self and lifted both feet up but I felt it strike the front rubber cap of my 5-10 shoes. Scared the crap out of me, I pulled up 20 meters further on to make sure I didn't have any bites or scratches I hadn't noticed.

Most of the time I can be 10 -15 ks out in the middle of nowhere, no helicopter (we don't have a rescue helicopter anyway) or vehicle access, if bitten you'd be dead before you made it halfway back.

Now I'm worried, do I pack a snake bite kit. An EPIRB is good but an hour can go by before local authorities can be notified, if your bitten by snake you'll need to do some good first aid with a snake bite kit in the interim.

Snake bites are survivable if you apply a compression bandage and stay completely still.

To the OP, sorry to hear mate, hopefully a speedy recovery and to put it behind you.

One of my worst crashes was also one of the slowest speed crashes I've ever had, you don't need speed to seriously hurt yourself, just land they wrong way on some rocks.

 

[Mountie]

I regularly ride alone and on a multitude of different tracks, my wife has no idea where I am. I'm pretty much counting on her logging on to a PC and using "find my iphone" to locate my lifeless body when I haven't turned up for dinner. It's funny you mention snakes, our trails here in Central Australia are littered with some of the most venomous snakes on the planet.

Last summer I rounded a corner at speed to only notice at the last minute a Western Brown sitting squarely in my line, I shit my self and lifted both feet up but I felt it strike the front rubber cap of my 5-10 shoes. Scared the crap out of me, I pulled up 20 meters further on to make sure I didn't have any bites or scratches I hadn't noticed.

Most of the time I can be 10 -15 ks out in the middle of nowhere, no helicopter (we don't have a rescue helicopter anyway) or vehicle access, if bitten you'd be dead before you made it halfway back.

Now I'm worried, do I pack a snake bite kit. An EPIRB is good but an hour can go by before local authorities can be notified, if your bitten by snake you'll need to do some good first aid with a snake bite kit in the interim.

Snake bites are survivable if you apply a compression bandage and stay completely still.

To the OP, sorry to hear mate, hopefully a speedy recovery and to put it behind you.

One of my worst crashes was also one of the slowest speed crashes I've ever had, you don't need speed to seriously hurt yourself, just land they wrong way on some rocks.

I’m taking up knitting

 

[Pendo]

+1 for the snake bite kit, we ride with one too. Response to an Epirb can be slow but when it takes three hours to ride to help, Epirb is quicker.
Had a mate chased 100m down a track by an angry brown snake.

 

[estoril]

Hope you are recovering OK.

I ride solo quite often but use a Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt/Roam, Wahoo has a feature to send an email to anyone you want to know where you are and it's a live track so they can see where you are at any time.

 

[Rob Rides EMTB]

Woah @nickw1965 hope you're feeling OK. thanks for sharing. You're local to me too I see, I often head out alone, give me a shout if you ever want some company.

Like others have said I really like the idea of the emergency alerts. The Specialized Angi helmet sounds interesting...

 

[R120]

The Angi is now available as a kit to mount on any helmet, provided the helmet has a suitable surface to stick it on at the back - its not transferable between helmets though

 

[estoril]

My son has Angi on his new helmet, it's not a live track as such (or at least his wasn't when we tested it), it messaged at the start and showed several points on a map where he had been but didn't show the current location. The Wahoo one is much better IMO but you will, of course, need to buy a Wahoo device.

 

[nickw1965]

Wow
Mountain lions, cougars , bears ,brown snakes .I think the most threatening thing that’s jumped out on me has been a rabbit.
Since my accident I have had flashbacks and I think a log or tree was across the trail as I dropped in. I tried to explain to my family the feeling of freedom when riding solo is hard to beat.
Our sport has its dangers but the rewards are far greater.How many of us have had that close call, the rush of adrenaline afterwards is incredible.I think that is the moment when we feel most alive.It was google maps that saved my bacon that morning as I managed to send my daughter my location, not easy with no reading glasses.
If my post has made you think about a backup plan for just a minute then it was worth posting.

 

[MitchF]

Thanks for sharing that, it’s made me think ???

 

[Titch mortimer]

Mate believe it or not the hip stayed locked in.This was 6 weeks after op.Im told by surgeons that the force to snap a femur is huge.That said I proved that a hip replacement once settled is as good as new .

I had mine done a few years ago and most of the time I forget I had it done and I climb towers and masts for a job, it's just when on the bike I'm concerned a little bit

 

[flash]

Glad you're OK and a speedy recovery.

Gordon