I’ve returned home from my trip to Missouri to ride my bike in the “Big BAM (Bike Across Missouri) on the Katy” event – https://www.bigbamride.com. Things didn’t go how I thought they would go…

Prelude

I drove to St Charles, a suburb of St Louis, on Saturday, Oct 5 and spent the night there. I stayed in a hotel next to Frontier Park, which is the site of one of Lewis and Clark’s campgrounds.

The next morning I checked out of the hotel, parked my Honda Pilot in the designated parking area at the Lewis & Clark Boathouse and Museum, dropped my bicycle at the transport truck and boarded the shuttle for the 4-hour ride to Clinton, MO – which is the western terminus of the Katy Trail.

At the Trailhead

I had signed up for the tent service and after checking-in I retrieved my bicycle and bags and put the bags in the tent and locked my bike to a fence. I got a great dinner from the Atomic Hog food truck and attended the orientation event, after which there was music and beverages. I retired to my tent and went to sleep…. until about 11:30 PM when the air mattress provided with the tent service had completely deflated and I was on the ground. I slept fitfully for the rest of the night, but oh well; I let the staff know in the morning and they said they would replace it.

I woke up at 6AM on Monday morning, had some of the provided coffee and pastries, got dressed and started the ride at about 8AM. It was a clear, chilly and beautiful morning which made for a fantastic ride. The campground was a bustle of activity as people woke and prepared for the day’s ride.

I rode to the western terminus of the trail at the Clinton Trailhead and rang the bell there, expecting that in 6 days I would ring the corresponding bell at the eastern terminus of the trail at the Machens Trailhead.

From there I took off, stopping briefly in Windsor for water and bio functions and then passed the high point on the trail.

Here is a short, 6-ish minute, video I compiled from some of the footage I took that morning:

As my brother noted after I recounted this story to him and he viewed the above video, “It was a nice ride until it wasn’t.”

An Incident at Camp Branch Road

After stopping for a tasty lunch in Green Ridge I continued on toward Sedalia, the endpoint for the day. At about 11:41 AM I crossed Camp Branch Road, roughly 10 miles from the day’s ride endpoint in Sedalia traveling at about 9mph (according to the GPS track).

By a fraction of an inch I misjudged my clearance of the gate structure meant to keep motorized vehicles off the trail and the left side of my handlebars clipped the gate. This pulled my handlebars to the left, pitched me off the bike and I landed hard on the trail. There were several people around who saw the accident and they immediately responded to take care of me. They made sure I stayed laying down, called the SAG support to pick up my bike and called an ambulance to pick me up and haul me to wherever.

A previous event I attended offered a special deal where I could get a Road ID wristband for free. This wristband is a simple thing that lists things that are important if you happen to be in an accident and can’t answer a lot (or any) questions; things like your name, your emergency contact, your drug allergies, etc. I was wearing my free wristband and it helped those at the crash site as well as the ambulance and ER staff to know these details. I specifically remember hearing the ER doctors talking amongst themselves about how useful it was. They are cheap, even when they’re not free, and I recommend getting one and wearing it! https://www.roadid.com

My GoPro that is attached to the front of my bike was running at the time and caught the whole thing. I’ve viewed the PTSD-inducing encounter with the gate and the aftermath and it’s not something I care to see again!

Also, let the record show that both my hands were on the handlebars and I was not preoccupied with anything other than chatting with other riders! It was simply a spacial misjudgment on how much clearance I had between my bike and the gate.

A few seconds after the crash, my Garmin 1040 bike computer began issuing an electronic “distress call”. I had set up and enabled the “Incident Detection” function on the device whereby if the device detects what it thinks is an “incident” it will start wailing with that distress call and you have 15 seconds to press a button to disable it. If you don’t disable it within that time window, the unit will interact with your phone to send an incident message to your designated emergency contact. After my crash, it did just that. My wife, the lovely and gracious Mrs. Trail, received the following text message:

Clicking the link in the received text message takes one to a map showing the location of the incident:

If you have a device that supports this function, set it up and enable it – especially if you ride alone!

The Aftermath

I was transported via ambulance to the nearest trauma hospital, the University of Missouri, Columbia, Medical Center. There I spent a night in the ER and two nights under observation in the Neuroscience ICU. I was X-rayed, CT-scanned and MRI’d nine ways to Sunday and the medical staff determined that I had a spinal contusion.

Mrs. Trail, who has her own PTSD story from this incident, flew from Nashville to St. Louis on Monday night and early Tuesday morning, she took an Uber to where I had parked my Honda Pilot in St. Charles and then drove the Pilot to Columbia, MO to the hospital.

I was discharged from the hospital on Thursday morning and we drove home to Tennessee, stopping about every 2 hours to give me a chance to walk around.

My spinal contusion has given me some severe nerve pain in my forearms and has significantly reduced my grip strength. Over the past few days that pain and weakness has diminished some in both intensity and scope. My hope and expectation is that the trend will continue until the pain is completely gone and my grip strength is restored. I have followup appointments with a couple of local spine specialists.

The staff at the Big BAM Ride were fantastic in their response to the initial SAG call and then in helping my wife pick up my bike and shoehorn it into the back of the Pilot. Additionally the staff at the hospital were thorough and compassionate in their treatment of me.

The folks on the ride and those others who were on the trail at Camp Branch Road were nice and their quick response to my accident was exemplary. Many thanks to all of them!

The whole experience has left me humbled, embarrassed at my spacial misjudgment that led to this whole debacle and grateful that the outcome appears to be on track for a resolution far short of the “worst case scenario” that it could have been.

Bike Gear and Notes

People (mostly fellow cyclists – ha!) ask how my bike fared through this; in fact, when I was on the ground after the accident those around note that I was asking how the bike was – ha! Well, the bike is fine. It has a small tear in the tape on the left side of the handlebars and that is all.

My helmet has some dents in the front left quadrant and will be retired and replaced. The rear-view mirror attached to my helmet has some terminal bends and scratches and will be replaced. My sunglasses were obliterated and I think one of the lenses vaporized on impact since it is no longer present – ha!

ER Notes

If you’ve never been in an ER, it is quite a sad menagerie. Of course, the menagerie included me with my issues, but to my left was a guy who was brought in after being stabbed in the eye by his step-brother when they were fighting over a dog. To my right was an unfortunate woman who was receiving counsel from a physician that she might want to consider amputating her leg!

I count myself fortunate to have only almost broken my neck!

Takeaways

• Don’t scrimp on your helmet; get a good one and wear it!
• Get a Road ID wristband and wear it!
  https://www.roadid.com
• If you have a bike computer with incident detection, set it up and enable it!
• Organized bike events with SAG support are great!