A year ago I was recovering from my big crash. That occurred on the twenty-fifth of October. By this time that November I had visited my GP, then seen specialists with more x-rays taken. I was still pretty wobbly with a cane. My exercising comprised of physical therapy stretches for the broken shoulder, breathing exercises to keep my lungs clear from the collapsed lung. And lastly shuffle-walking to and from a chair in the front room, bathroom and bed. It would be another almost two months before I was physically on a bicycle. That much delay was primarily down to the shoulder and ribs healing enough and getting the go ahead from the specialist. Secondarily the bike was taking a long time to resurrect thanks to the one piece cockpit from Most/Pinarello. That all took long enough, the shop forgot my brake setup was with the righthand lever controlling the front brake. Those levers replaced the OS needed updating and the new levers needed to be connected to t he system, which with my having done the app and electronic maintenance and adjustments myself, the shop did not have access to my system. Or at least that is how I got the bike back. All easily corrected. Though I left the brakes flipped for a long time while I was gathered tools and parts. Zwift was begun after I got the OK from the surgeon that all was healed well enough for indoor training. I set up in my usual space in the garage reverting back to Covid days riding. I would eventually move upstairs to the living room where I got the big screen to use. And a lot better ventilation with the breeze through the house. Much better. This is now my winter weather, aka Godzilla El Niño indoor riding setup. Though we are still enjoying perfect weather punctuated with short epic storms.
Since then the old flat screen has died and been replaced along with the removal of the old tech sound system/sound bar. The new smart TV did not want to play with the soundbar. That all works well enough. Better than the former setups. Zwift has a new “Plus” system I’ll get to play with when we finally get to bad weather.
I got back outdoors on the bicycle on the 19th of January of 2026. From that date, I progressed to where I managed a century on my own. And got to some pretty good numbers for distance and endurance for me. My power is still down about 20 to 25% over where I was prior to the crash. My shoulder gets really tired when riding hills while standing and pushing even a little bit hard. I’m definitely more careful and anxious about shadows and road hazards.
I was hit by a car, but not knocked down or injured a few months ago.
Then a few weeks ago an e-bike tried to knock me down.
So, a year of still near misses. I have a number of close calls or stupid drivers and riders on my YouTube channel.
According to Strava, I’ve managed 11.765,4km, 65,008m over 482 hours. I’m pretty happy with that part. I’ve destroyed around $400 in tires with a very not so great experiment into tubeless. All these tires were punctured to the point of no possible repair or repair that worked until I got a new tire because the damaged tire was distorted enough to be just short of failure even after a patch. Plugs in a lot of instances were not possible. I still have tubeless supplies, I may or may not keep. But, I decided the last time I had to replace tires to go with a little more robust tire with he Pirelli P-Zero Road tire in 28mm tube type because I figured these tires would be what I used over the winter on the trainer so swap the rear off for the red Vittoria trainer tire. I’ve still not convinced myself to drop $500 on a new wheel off trainer. If I lived in a larger house, I’d have kept the old Roubaix as a trainer bike. And just as likely would have back when I got the wheel on trainer would have opted for wheel off.
I experimented with some home lifting again a few weeks ago and found I could split up my old two hour routine into two one hour routines. Then discovered we have access to a gym as included with our health insurance. I may use that when the rains begin with my wife attending her various classes there. Though her classes are much shorter than my usual lifting workout, but those are problems for future me. My home gym works enough for where my shoulder is, though lat pulls and a couple of other overhead pull downs are not possible for me at home. The plan though for this raining winter is to ride indoors as more focused work and lift focused on rebuilding my shoulder more and overall strength.
