I posted about this online at Bentrideronline.com, but....thought I should leave a note here. A week ago Tuesday, (July 6, 2010), I crashed on my Carbent; it appears in retrospect (it wasn't clear to me at the time) that this was 100% self-induced. I had changed handlebars out, and evidently needed to put in a longer front derailleur cable, plus I didn't cinch down what was there well enough; even though I rode it that way quite a bit, it wasn't until July 6 that it caught up with me; somehow my pedals (apparently, it's a little unclear to me; it happened quickly) got tangled up in the cable, ripped off the forward cable stop on the main tube; the whole affair up front became a tangled mess very quickly, and (I guess) the front wheel got locked up somehow. In any case, I went down on my left side, and ended up with the worst roadrash I have ever experienced. Most of the bottom of my left forearm, an area on my left hand, and a 6 inch circular patch on my left hip were sushi.
I'm almost healed up as I type this (July 15), mostly due to the miraculous powers of DuoDerm. I can't recommend this stuff enough. I found this report dated from 2003 by Dawn Richardson, M.D. at http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-195006.html.
I can't swear, of course, that I healed up much faster and better than I would have without DuoDerm, but...my hand was treated with 3M TegaDerm, which the post lists as a distinct second choice to DuoDerm. The hand is doing well, but the areas on the forearm and hip were much larger and deeper, and more concerning, and they (the hip and arm) have pinkish skin-like stuff (as opposed to raw meat or scab) on them now. Plus a profusion of tape adhesive residue and skin irritation from the tape (I can live with this, no problem).
Anyway, this crash kind of made my life miserable for awhile, and I was kind of wigged out about getting back on the hiracer; I had a crash where I went down just as hard on the TiRush about a month earlier, and came out without any injuries. It was raining a bit, and I apparently hit a very slippery spot in the road; must've been braking the front wheel as I hit a greasy ragged broken spot in the road; I believe the wheel slipped on the sloped slippery edge of the road fracture. The difference in the outcome was because (I believe) I was protected by the Lexan fairing and Dryline bodysock. The fairing has some new scratches on it; but it's still perfectly serviceable.
This is not to criticize the hiracer format; all cycling is a series of managed risks, and it's up to each cyclist to decide what set of risks she's comfortable with. But I was left with kind of a psychological hurdle to overcome, getting back on the hiracer. I spent some time on the trainer with it, trying to get confident that whatever happened before was not going to recur (I realize how pathetic and futile this sounds, but....that's what I needed to do).
Then today, I took the Carbent out for some PowerTap speed tests. Results of this testing (the results are somewhat ambiguous) follow in a later post. I feel better about riding the Carbent again, though, which is a good thing. I really needed to 'get back on the horse'; it was time.
