I was riding on a bike path and switched bikes with my companion because his was an e-bike and I wanted to try it out. I didn’t realize it would accelerate after I stopped pedaling and crashed into him mildly. He didn’t even fall off his bike but I overcorrected trying to avoid him and bombed down the hill. I’m covered in scrapes and I have a couple bruised ribs, bad enough that it hurts to laugh or move in certain ways. A couple people stopped and checked that I was okay after my mishap, so it was bad enough that others were concerned.
My ribs are killing me and I was just getting on my weight loss journey so this is gonna be annoying for a couple weeks and I just have to live with that.
Btw for those who don’t know, usually for this sort of thing they don’t x-ray your chest because it doesn’t matter if they’re bruised or fractured, the management is the same. (This is different in cases of flail chest or massive trauma.) So I don’t know if they’re broken or not I just know that if I sneeze it will feel like getting stabbed and I had a telehealth appt tomorrow where she may tell me to stick to NSAIDs and acetominophen because of my history of addiction.
Once I was riding the bike during winter which I usually do. I went past a big frozen puddle and wondered over how everyone always says to never brake on the ice with a bike. I wondered how that actually feels like so I went super slow over the frozen puddle and started braking. Now I understand why people say that. I didn’t just fall off the bike. All the forward momentum I had was magically converted to sideways momentum and even though I was going really slow I still fell with rapid force on my side severely hurting my left elbow. I was bedridden for 2 weeks. Could barely go to the toilet. Absolutely unbelievably stupid. I hope this makes you feel any better.
Haha sometimes you just have to learn the hard lessons yourself!
My dad did a similar thing on train tracks (tried to go at an acute angle slowly instead of hitting it hard closer to perpendicular) and got hurt when he was a kid. Slow is worse a lot of the time.
I am going to see if the doctor will give me something stronger than Advil and Tylenol. I kinda think she won’t because she’s been extremely cautious, in my personal AND professional opinion to a fault, with giving me anything new. Like yeah I had an alcohol problem and I told you that because I wanted to get better. That doesn’t mean I would get addicted to anything. She wouldn’t give me Adderall, which I’ve been on for almost 12 years, or something for sleep, and had me talk to the psychiatrist, who gave me my previous dose of Adderall and added Seroquel for sleep on really rough nights. Like I’ve had issues but giving me like 3 oxycodone won’t turn me into an opiod addict.
I know exactly what you’re talking about with the sudden flip to the side. I broke my hand that way. Thanks, you did make me feel better.
I love ebikes, but they really necessitate motorcycle safety gear. Now I wear a full face helmet, a crash jacket with level 2 pads in the shoulders/elbows/chest/back, crash pants with level 2 pads in the hips/knees, a smartwatch with crash detection/auto-911 dialing, and armoured gloves with knuckle/wrist pads and webbed fingers. I’ll never exceed 32kmh and try to avoid roads.
Hopefully it doesn’t deter you from trying them again! A cargo ebike was the best purchase I ever made for an active lifestyle. Once you know how to safely use them, exercise becomes a constant that’s entirely within your control. You’ll find yourself biking 50km on a whim and staying at your target heartrate the entire time.
Can’t you just limit the speed? I wouldn’t want to go above roughly 30 kph on a bike anyway.
They’re limited by class. Class 1/2 maxes out at 32kmh. Class 3 maxes out at 45kmh. Then there are emotos/hyperbikes which use illegal >750w motors to go above 45kmh. Like you I don’t trust bicycle components above bicycle speeds with the added weight of an ebike. Anything above that and motorcycles are much heavier for a reason. 32kmh is the perfect urban max speed, getting me anywhere in the city as fast as I could drive.
They are awesome especially in an area like I am in Washington where there are a lot of elevation changes, but they are getting so powerful! They need to be taken seriously as it’s not like riding a bike when you’re a kid. I appreciate the gear recommendations. I think I’ll stick to the normal bike for most of the time and then use ebikes for special occasions. There are some cool roads out in the middle of nowhere in Washington and Oregon. I will try again when it doesn’t hurt to breathe.
usually for this sort of thing they don’t x-ray your chest because it doesn’t matter if they’re bruised or fractured, the management is the same
I’m sorry, according to who? I bruised a muscle over a rib this past winter, and the local Urgent Care had me drive to a different location to get an x-ray because it’s just a good thing to know. They put me on muscle relaxers, which did help, but for the sake of your medical records and complications, they should do an x-ray.
At my institution it is not protocol to obtain a CXR without other signs because management will be the same. It is different when someone was in a motor vehicle accident or a severe trauma, and they all get pan scanned anyway. I have worked at urgent cares and community clinics and they wouldn’t have done additional imaging in this case. They might have done at the large hospital I rotated at but I’m actually not sure. I’m surprised your urgent care didn’t have x-ray on site. It’s weird to see how different places do it.
I just wanted to complain about it a little bit because it hurts and my friend keeps making me laugh on purpose
