June 12th

Woke this morning unsure what time it was because there is no clock, and my phone is on the charger across the room. Laid there with some trepidation. Doing a self check. Legs feel good. Stomach feels good. Fingers crossed everything stays that way.

Getting up out of bed means starting the monumental task of packing the bike. In between various packing task, I had some breakfast of mostly protein bars and milk. Decided to give up on the milk but the bars are sitting quite well. Seems I’ve made it over the hump with this damn nausea thing. Only slight and brief appearance after breakfast

Making sure everything is packed tight and in it’s rightful place on the bike took longer than I expecting, about an hour and half all together. One last check to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything behind, it was time to hit the road.

Made a decision last night that I was going to forego the route and head due east out of Spruce Pine. Hopefully trading some rough terrain for easier and skipping a few miles in the process to make up some time. Looks like I’ll be catching the route about 150 miles later. 

Right out of Spruce Pine the highway was under construction and I’m feeling good. It appears they are turning two-lanes into four. I opted to ride the yet to be opened additional lanes, safely away from traffic. 

At one point I need to make a switch and cross traffic and pick up the new lanes on the other side of the active highway. Looking over my shoulder wondering what the slow moving car coming up from behind is doing, my front tire caught the edge of a 4 to 6 in drop in the pavement. Was doing a fairly good job at hanging on and maintaining control until I was thrown over the handle bars, landing mostly on my right side with the bike flipping over me.

Sat there for a brief moment and took inventory of myself. All checks out. Looked at the bike to see a few things had come out of semi-open pockets. Stood up and took another inventory. By the grace of god I have no scrapes, but do have some aches appearing. Left wrist, Right forearm, right upper arm and a bit of shoulder discomfort. The good news… everything moves without shooting pain. 

I picked my bike up and had to relocate some things, such as straighten the bars to line up with the front wheel, and twist the rear break lever back into position. Then I picked up the couple things that fell out bags.

Back to peddling, I realize the right side is gonna remind me for a few days that something happened. As I peddled the pain in my right arm started to increase but only when I moved it. I’m good in a riding position, can barely tell anything happened. That is if I don’t take my hands off the bars. Although operating the shift levers with the right hand is another story. Up shifting is ok, but pushing the level to down shift is almost a no go due to pain.

Peddled six miles into Burnsville and decided to stop at Burger King to take a moment to regroup. Picking up the bike to get it up over the curb proved quite painful. Certain I’m going to have one hell of bruise to show for my mistake. 

Sitting in Burger King I’m thinking. This is getting worse, maybe I should have it looked at. Using Google maps I found an urgent care clinic about a mile up the road. Off to the clinic, getting my bike off the curb to start peddling was more painful than getting it up there. 

When I arrived at the clinic I told the front desk girl about my biking trip, and that I had taken a spill. I asked if they can do x-rays. They did so I filled out the paperwork to be seen. 

Giving the full breakdown to the nurse practitioner of what had a full range of motion, what motion caused pain and the pain levels associated with that movement. 

The nurse took me into the x-ray room and I fought hard to get my right arm into the positions she needed for good x-rays. Before I could get my arm off the table from the last picture, she said, yep there it is… “Radial Head fracture”

Don’t quite remember if I wanted to breakdown right then or a few moments later when the NP confirmed the fracture. The pictures are pretty damn clear and a degree in radiology is not necessary to see the obvious…

I’m done!

As I write this I’m sitting in a hotel room waiting to hear plans of who is coming to take me back home to Michigan.