Claudia Breaks a Rib

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On the weekend of May 15-16, Gilbert and I, along with Madeleine and her friend Soraya, went cycling with a group of about 23 others from Cégep Ahuntsic, the college where Gilbert works. A bus picked us up at the cégep at 7:30 a.m. and headed north. First stop was summer camp at St-Jovite where we would spend the night and where we left our personal gear. Second stop was at Lac Nominingue where we picked up the Petit Train du Nord (Parc linéaire) packed gravel, cycling path. The weather was glorious and on Saturday, there was just about no one on the bike path. However, the path is treacherous in places because there are pockets of sand or loose gravel where they fill in the holes and build up the path (and that aren't all that easy to see sometimes) and your bike tends to slip and slide but you get used to it. Some of the scenery was very beautiful - lakes, hills, pine trees - and we spent a glorious day. At the village of Mont Tremblant, Gilbert and I added a little side trip (10 km and 10 back) along the asphalt trail from the village to the mountain slopes. This time we went to the north side of the mountain ski village. We think that this is probably the prettiest bike path we know in Quebec. Then we joined the others in St-Jovite. The food was bland and ordinary but we knew this from last year and it certainly didn't stop us all from having a good time. In the evening, it was still warm enough to sit comfortably around a campfire. Most pleasant.

Sunday, we left St-Jovite around 9:30 a.m. to head on down to Lafontaine (about 85 km) which is just north of St. Jerome and which was our meeting place with the bus. After we'd ridden about 47 km, I had a rather spectacular accident. I was riding at about 25 km per hour

when my front wheel hit a sort of pothole filled with sand that I hadn't noticed. The handlebars jerked violently to the right and then to the left even though I had both hands on them and I plunged over them, my midriff landing solidly on the end of the left handlebar and the handlebar extension (which might actually have saved me from an extremely serious injury although the impact hurt like crazy). In effect the handlebar extension prevented the end of the handlebar from going any further than the skin. For a minute or so, I was yelling and couldn't move or breathe (and was scaring the daylights out of Gilbert who had been riding behind me and witnessed the whole thing). Then gradually I managed to move my arms and legs - nothing was broken there (don't ask me how my feet came off the pedal clips - I have no idea) and I have just a few superficial scrapes on one elbow and both knees. Next I managed to sit up. There was someone with a cell phone at that point but I didn't think I was injured enough to call an ambulance. My head felt a little light but we had some oranges with us and I ate one which helped a lot. However it was painful to breathe standing up. Actually I was more comfortable sitting on my bike and as it was all downhill from where we were, I decided I'd try to continue the ride. As you can imagine, I rode very cautiously and never did more that 21 km an hour. After about 8 km, we stopped for lunch in Val David and although I wasn't very hungry, I ate half a sandwich and drank a can of ginger ale. Then we continued another 20 km to Piedmont where there was an early pick-up 15km from the end; although I was tempted to continue, I ended up taking the bus with a few others mainly because I didn't want to hold up the rest of the group.

Once we got home, I took a nice long bath during which I felt very comfortable and later, I managed to get a reasonable sleep although I woke up several times. I had very sore ribs and it hurt to breathe in and out especially when I was standing so this morning, went to our local medical clinic, where I saw the doctor on call. I waited 1.75 hr to see him and by the time I was through, the x-ray technician had gone for lunch so I went home, had lunch and then went back to the clinic. The doctor said that the sixth rib appeared to be broken but that time would heal it without a bandage or anything. Luckily my lungs were untouched. He told me to take a few days off from cycling which I did. In effect, I didn't ride for almost two weeks. The doctor said it could take anywhere from one to several weeks to heal and it ended up being about three weeks before I didn't feel my rib from time to time (depending on the position).

I feel really lucky that none of my limbs were broken and that I didn't hit my head etc. Oh, I forgot to mention that I managed to bend the bike handlebars: the left side was about 2 in. higher than the right but everything worked so I was able to continue my ride after the fall. And as it was my old bike, I was not as disappointed as if it had been my new one. At any rate, we had the handlebars replaced and the bike works like new.

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