I've been taking it easy the week after the race since my wife was away on work travel. On Saturday October 26th the day after she returned home. I ended up going on a bike ride, something I haven't done too much due to training for the half-marathon. It was a real treat for me. I had actually been working on my TT bike for the last few months sourcing Di2 parts off of Ebay. I had spent a lot of time researching, disassembling mechanical parts and replacing them with the electronic parts. It was a pretty sweet project best saved for another post. I've been on 2 short test rides prior to get the gears index and the bike riding properly. The shifting felt great and I even replaced the worn 5 year old bar tape. The bike felt great. I felt a bit adventurous that day and went on a route I didn't always go one. It can some steeper small climbs and winding roads something different from just riding through straight roads. The route was beautiful with a lot of nice fall colors but the technicality of the route did remind me of the limitation of my old TT bike from 2016. The wheels are carbon wheels and the brakes are rim brakes so slowing down on sleep descent made me nervous. I've also been riding my Cervelo Caledonia more than my TT bike and the endurance road bike definitely felt a lot more stable on descents and on climbs. It was windy but on the flats the Garneau TR1 really shined. I have hopes of doing a half Ironman and the closest one is known to be hilly. I couldn't help but to think maybe the TR1 wouldn't be the best bike for that course.
I was getting pretty tired and didn't want to push it too much on my first "real" ride in a while so I decided to head back home. I ended up going across King Rd. I was pretty familiar this road but not on the side I was coming from. I did see some drainage trenches but the first one looked shallow enough to ride over however the 2nd one wasn't and I ended up going over my bike. Me and my bike were flung into the air. I remember landing on the right side of my head and right shoulder and see my bike fly past me bouncing off the road. I got up to grab my bike my cycling wallet, phone and bike radar. The first thing I noticed was my new bar tape and tt bars were out of position and then the chips on seat stays. I was pretty sad my brand new Di2 shifters and brakes were scraped up as well. I took a few minutes to gather myself and assess the situation further. I noticed my helmet was cracked and bike shoe covers were ripped. At first I thought my cycling jacket was fine but later noticed it was torn up at the neck/back of the shoulder area. I am very thankful as I wasn't seriously hurt, just scrapes, some road rash and bruising. But I was super bummed out the bike I poured a lot of time and love into was busted up, my favorite jacket and helmet were gone. I called my wife to pick me up. While I was waiting I used my multi-tool to set the handlebars properly to walk my bike to the closest safe area to be picked up. My place wasn't too far away but I didn't feel safe riding with a compromised helmet and possibly compromised bike. My wife picked me up pretty quickly and spend the rest of the day resting. In retrospect this was an 1k+ bike crash, the jacket, helmet and potentials repairs will end up being more than $1000. However the helmet did it job its been 3 days, and my head and neck are feeling fine. Stiffness in the neck lasted maybe 1 day. The jacket is pretty messed up but I'll see if I can get it fixed some how. A key take away is also don't try to ride over anything you feel is sketchy especially while riding a TT bike. Time Trail/Tri bikes are pretty much made to be ridden on flat road. I'm sure it would be ok on tight pack gravel but I also don't have the skills to be bombing across questionable terrain. I should've just tried to stop and maybe walked across. Taking it slow and assessing the situation is the right way to go sometimes.
