Globalti
Legendary Member
My brother lives outside Detroit. I have just received this from him:
"I went cycling on Sunday to my usual favorite "super ride" which is an arduous eighteen mile trail winding between the glacial moraines left by the last ice age about 10 minutes away from here. Sunday was a cold, manky, wet, greasy day, one of those days where you have had enough of being indoors and decide, "what the hell" then go out irrespective of conditions. The trail was virtually deserted, only a few cars in the parking lot. I was glad of my leggings, warm top and gore-tex jacket. Nice long gloves too and my usual trusty helmet. It must have been about two or three degrees. It felt cold. After an hour or so, I decided i`d had enough and took a shortcut which would eventually bring me back onto the return trail and back to the parking lot. I noticed that very few bikers had ridden this trail, judging by the tire tracks, perhaps a couple that day. My spirits returned and the trail was pretty easy. The usual swooping down moraine flanks followed by a mad charge up the other side with a crunching and banging of changing gears jut before the top. Lots of roots, wet rotten leaves and half buried rocks. Never really a problem if one accepts a bit of bucking and jumping between the front and rear wheels; easy. Suddenly my front wheel slipped sideways off a leaf covered rock. I must have been going pretty fast and my handlebar whacked a tree, whipping the wheel around and pitching me off the bike, feet still attached to pedals. I hit the ground very hard, landing on the right side of my head. I remember thinking on the way down, "oh shoot this will hurt".
It was getting dark and I felt freezing, didn`t have a clue what had happened and my mind didn`t work when I tried to put it together. Just a blank. I was lying on my side, twisted up in my bike and managed to kick out of the pedal clips then just lie there thinking what the hell? It felt damn cold and I realized i`d better stand up and get warm. Body didn`t want to move and it felt like I just wanted to go to sleep. No good. Forced myself up and held onto a tree. Felt like shoot. My right cheek was all scoured and my helmet was full of cold wet mud and leaves. The it really got wierd. I realised I had no clue what I was doing, where I was and what was going on, Funnily enough, I did begin to realise that I must have lost my memory. It felt really bloody frightening and looking up and down the trail, I began to panic a little, not knowing what to do or where to go. I was bloody freezing, shivering and feeling like I just wanted to sleep. I had to gather myself and reasoned that I needed to keep going to get warm. Checked the trail and saw all the scour marks and recent tire tracks behind me so went off in the opposite direction. I reasoned i`d either see a sign or a person at some point. I didn`t recognise any of it and had no clue where I was going. After something like 20 mins, I met a group of hikers, stopped and asked them where the main parking lot was. They looked at me like I was just in from Mars...so I explained that i`d fallen and must have knocked myself out and was unable to remember anything. The guy pointed out that my helmet was cracked and full of mud. Anyway, at that point, two more bikers turned up so I followed them. It took another ten minutes to find the car park. All that time I was trying to reason out where I was and what I had been doing. Still didn`t remember anything. I felt extremely relieved to get back to the parking lot and remembered that black Jeep was mine. It started to come back to me then. I threw all my stuff and the bike into the Jeep and started to warm up. At that point I realised that my cellphone and wallet were in the Jeep. I had been riding without either, nor had I left a "flight plan" with C****.
Getting home was a relief. I had called C**** and she freaked out a bit, wanting to come and get me or call an ambulance. I still just wanted to sleep but after a hot shower, C**** checked my pupil reactions with a torch and they were fine. I spent the next 24 hours with a bastard of a headache but felt fine by yesterday afternoon.
Moral of the story? When cycling on yer own, file a flight plan with the missus and take yer wallet and cellphone. The worst feeling in the world was the memory loss. Not knowing anything about anything, just a blank..it was a scary feeling and it quickly made me feel like panicing."
"I went cycling on Sunday to my usual favorite "super ride" which is an arduous eighteen mile trail winding between the glacial moraines left by the last ice age about 10 minutes away from here. Sunday was a cold, manky, wet, greasy day, one of those days where you have had enough of being indoors and decide, "what the hell" then go out irrespective of conditions. The trail was virtually deserted, only a few cars in the parking lot. I was glad of my leggings, warm top and gore-tex jacket. Nice long gloves too and my usual trusty helmet. It must have been about two or three degrees. It felt cold. After an hour or so, I decided i`d had enough and took a shortcut which would eventually bring me back onto the return trail and back to the parking lot. I noticed that very few bikers had ridden this trail, judging by the tire tracks, perhaps a couple that day. My spirits returned and the trail was pretty easy. The usual swooping down moraine flanks followed by a mad charge up the other side with a crunching and banging of changing gears jut before the top. Lots of roots, wet rotten leaves and half buried rocks. Never really a problem if one accepts a bit of bucking and jumping between the front and rear wheels; easy. Suddenly my front wheel slipped sideways off a leaf covered rock. I must have been going pretty fast and my handlebar whacked a tree, whipping the wheel around and pitching me off the bike, feet still attached to pedals. I hit the ground very hard, landing on the right side of my head. I remember thinking on the way down, "oh shoot this will hurt".
It was getting dark and I felt freezing, didn`t have a clue what had happened and my mind didn`t work when I tried to put it together. Just a blank. I was lying on my side, twisted up in my bike and managed to kick out of the pedal clips then just lie there thinking what the hell? It felt damn cold and I realized i`d better stand up and get warm. Body didn`t want to move and it felt like I just wanted to go to sleep. No good. Forced myself up and held onto a tree. Felt like shoot. My right cheek was all scoured and my helmet was full of cold wet mud and leaves. The it really got wierd. I realised I had no clue what I was doing, where I was and what was going on, Funnily enough, I did begin to realise that I must have lost my memory. It felt really bloody frightening and looking up and down the trail, I began to panic a little, not knowing what to do or where to go. I was bloody freezing, shivering and feeling like I just wanted to sleep. I had to gather myself and reasoned that I needed to keep going to get warm. Checked the trail and saw all the scour marks and recent tire tracks behind me so went off in the opposite direction. I reasoned i`d either see a sign or a person at some point. I didn`t recognise any of it and had no clue where I was going. After something like 20 mins, I met a group of hikers, stopped and asked them where the main parking lot was. They looked at me like I was just in from Mars...so I explained that i`d fallen and must have knocked myself out and was unable to remember anything. The guy pointed out that my helmet was cracked and full of mud. Anyway, at that point, two more bikers turned up so I followed them. It took another ten minutes to find the car park. All that time I was trying to reason out where I was and what I had been doing. Still didn`t remember anything. I felt extremely relieved to get back to the parking lot and remembered that black Jeep was mine. It started to come back to me then. I threw all my stuff and the bike into the Jeep and started to warm up. At that point I realised that my cellphone and wallet were in the Jeep. I had been riding without either, nor had I left a "flight plan" with C****.
Getting home was a relief. I had called C**** and she freaked out a bit, wanting to come and get me or call an ambulance. I still just wanted to sleep but after a hot shower, C**** checked my pupil reactions with a torch and they were fine. I spent the next 24 hours with a bastard of a headache but felt fine by yesterday afternoon.
Moral of the story? When cycling on yer own, file a flight plan with the missus and take yer wallet and cellphone. The worst feeling in the world was the memory loss. Not knowing anything about anything, just a blank..it was a scary feeling and it quickly made me feel like panicing."
