TVC - Day 47 - And the Jello jiggled

I want to start off today's blog entry by quoting from the last paragraph of yesterday's blog....

"....if all goes as planned, and Mr. Jello does not rear his head, we should begin our journey at 6 am, and be back by 3 pm at the latest......"

....please let those words kind of hover over today's blog.......

Richard arrived on his bike at my coach at precisely 5:45 am......we had planned to depart at 6 am, but he was there, so why not?  The early morning chill was still in the air as we pedaled northward on our 'clockwise' circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe and we were each  bundled up against the 45 degree temperature.  We both took a break half way up the switchbacks to Emerald Bay to shed a few layers and continued onward......

We covered the first 11.17 miles in 68 minutes................

We encountered our first construction zone just before Meeks Bay and chatted with the 'flagman' for about 10 minutes  before we were allowed to proceed on........

......21.64 miles down and 50 to go..............................

We passed through Tahoe City about 8:30 having covered just under 30 miles....I was feeling great and very optimistic about completing the ride......about 9 am we stopped in Carnelian Bay having covered 33.87 miles in three hours and five minutes of riding time, and very close to the half way point.  I decided to shed my 'bike tights' as it was getting quite warm by this time (the projected high was to be 90 degrees and it was already 80).  

I leaned my bike against the curb and began stuffing my bike tights in my Camelback.......as I was doing that I noticed my bike begin to fall over and instinctively reached out with my left hand to grab it......as I grabbed it the rear wheel suddenly spun catching my hand and jamming my left middle finger into the rear disc brake rotor (see below) almost completely slicing off the tip of said finger.

  The offending rotor

As I looked at my damaged digit I heard myself say, almost matter of factly....'Richard, look what I did..."....I immediately knew my day was over and a trip to the urgent care was in order, more sooner than later.

Richard told me to put pressure on the cut to curtail the bleeding while he went into the SUP shop (SUP stands for Stand Up Paddle) at Watermans Landing to see if they had a first aid kit.....better yet they had a certified first aid person.......Richard came back to watch the bikes while I went inside.....I forget the young man's name, but he did a first rate job of 'irrigating' the wound, and sanitizing the surrounding area before applying the dressing.  By the time he was finished the bleeding had mostly stopped.  I called Elaine about 9:30 and related what had happened, and I that needed her to come and pick me up and take me to the nearest urgent care (Barton's Urgent Care) which was some 25 miles away at Stateline.  She arrived just after 10:30 and had me back to Barton's by 11:30.......while I waited for her I ordered a breakfast burrito and a cup of coffee and silently dealt with the great disappointment of how my adventure had ended.

---WARNING.....WARNING.....GROSS PICTURE COMING UP......

The damage

7 stitches later

I only waited 30 minutes before I heard my name called.....within minutes the doctor was injecting my finger with lidocaine prior to installing 7 stitches to reattach the end of my finger.   The doctor had a great 'bedside manner' and kept me laughing for the entire time.  He said this was the first bike related injury which did not involve crashing, or falling off a bike.

So, once again Mr. Jello rules the day.....Richard completed the ride whilst I awaited TLE's arrival with a total elapsed time of just over 6 hours.  Up until my accident our average speed had been 12 mph.....I know the Garmin says 10.9, but I had left it running almost 40 minutes after the accident before I shut it down.  I was back home by 1:30 with an item still unchecked on my 'bucket list'......it will be done.....you know it will!

I'll have the stitches removed in one week, but for now typing on a keyboard is going to be interesting when one of my fingers is 3 times bigger than usual.  Fortunately there is little, or not pain, so no pain killers have been necessary.

Around 6:30 pm we walked over to Lake Tahoe Pizza with Richard and Rhonda for dinner.....it was a great way to end a somewhat disappointing day!

Thanks for stopping by!