I've lost my bottle......

cyclerideruk

I had a bit of a tumble on my mtb earlier in the year and mashed up my clavicle pretty bad, but wasn't too bothered about it.
Problem is I recently had a more serious fall in the wet and badly broke my left humerus, I've been told it'll take 3 months in plaster and a month of physio, trouble is for the first time I'm really apprehensive about getting out on my bikes again, never felt like that before, but this seems to have shaken me up big time, just keep going through in my head hitting the ground hard.
Any one else felt like this?

jay12

that sucks bad mate. get well soon. tbh it could be worse as it could have happened at the beggining of summer, luckily it happend when it's gonna be winter and you should be riding in time for summer

jonnyc2420

yep, and still going through it....... only thing i found that has helped is using a turbo trainer and ipod cranked to the max to get rid of the mental gremlins.........just starting to go out again now and feel the time doing this in the lead up has been worthwhile.

cyclerideruk

Yeah I tried the trainer, but found it shakes my arm around too much, gotta give it another go :?

jonnyc2420

take yer time. i spent a good few hours spinning upright before i managed to get my hands anywhere near the bars, took a good 2 months before i could comfortably get my arm/shoulder to stretch enough to hold the bars comfortably, and still not 100% up to strength now - accident was 1st June, ripped tendons in front of shoulder and tore muscles in back of shoulder.
but i'm back up to speed enough to crash properly again without too much effort - still have the odd wobbly 'what it' feelings though.

Northwind

cyclerideruk wrote:

Any one else felt like this?

Yup. Wasn't mtbing at the time but it took me a long time to be comfortable on a motorbike again after I broke my hip then tore my ACL in the same leg, always with the thought "Mess that leg up again and you're f***ed". It's completely normal, one of those side effects of having higher brain functions and as far as I know there's no clever way round it, you pretty much have to do it by doing it. At some point I just found myself sorting out what was more important, avoiding the fear of re-injury or getting back on 2 wheels, there was definately a chance I'd have taken the first option though and if I had, well, it would have been the right thing to do if that was how it felt.

Try not to force it, if it's important to you it'll come. Riding with others, maybe a bit of skills training just for confidence reinforcement, might help, might not on the other hand.

El Capitano

Okay, so the typical forum response would be either:

MTFU!

Or

Sit down, have a pint of concrete and harden the F**k up!

However, in the real world…what you’re going through isn’t that unusual or abnormal. Been there, done that many, many times. The best advice to give you is to take your time. Don’t push yourself outside of your comfort zone until you’re truly at ease with your riding and bike handling. If you start on the gnarly stuff too soon and are ill prepared for it, you’re just going to end up not enjoying your riding and will most likely quit.

When you’re ready to start riding again, it might be an idea to start by putting some slick /Semi-slick tyres on your bike and just ride on roads/canal paths/fire roads etc

bentes

I've been on that situation also.

About 4 years ago I had a car accident, broke the umerus in 3 pieces and cut the nerve that feed hand movement. After surgery had to deal with 6 months of daily physical therapy before my hand and elbow started to move again.

Then I started to ride my bike again, was hugely protective of my right arm at first. Started to do simple circuits around my home of 10, 15min. After that the arm started to hurt again so had to stop. Eventualy the rides started to be more long and more demanding until complete (almost) recovery.
But it took nearly a year to get "well" again.

Good luck man, just don't quit. Keep going at it and do stuff that you feel confortable with. With time you'll be back to your old self!

paul.skibum

I smashed myself into a tree back when I started and made a bit of a mess of myself, luckily nothing too serious (broken wrist, ribs, black and blue leg and hip) - I was pretty tentative coming back into riding - got a Met Parachute and some armour and just found my way in - I bought a new bike too which helped!

birchy

Sorry to hear about the fall mate, for me when i broke 2 ribs last year, when i was fit to ride again i went out with my mates to do the same trail where i had my crash was i was a little bit stiff on the bike to start with (mojo gone) but then we got 2 the section that caught me out i took a minute get my head together (slap myself in the face kind of talking to myself)
then headed of first not wanting to be beaten went through the section at full tilt and cleared it mint from then on my mojo was back and i have never looked back since.
Hope it works for you mate

Bred2shred

Weirdly i've never had the fear after a crash on the bike, broke a couple of ribs recently and was back doing the same trail a few weeks later.

Have had the fear after a yard sale (a crash so violent you're gloves, goggles and beanie are strewn all over the mountain) snowboarding though, and as was said above break yourself back in gently building up the confidence as you go, then go hell for leather at the section that bit you last time. It might seem like macho bullshit but you have to get past it or it will drag you down at every turn and ruin your enjoyment of the sport you love.

Oh and MTFU. :P