Show us your biking scars!

[LisaB]

I'm with you - my eyes are too valuable to me to risk riding without some protection. They are always covered with glasses when I'm out on my bike, clear lenses in low light - but lenses that still have UV protection.

--- Denise

Let me clarify something here: I said I'd never wear glasses on the bike and I put it badly, because I meant prescription lenses - I too wear sun glasses and Sliders with clear or yellow lenses - but there was something about waking up laying on the ground after my first major crash, with an ambulance, paramedics, and a crowd surrounding me and not being able to see anything clearly because my glasses had broken when they hit my nose that was really frightening. No matter how early I get up to ride these days, I'll always put my contacts in. I never want to be in that situation again.

Now, back to scars ...

[emily_in_nc]

Fortunately, the 5-6" scar left on my right hip from surgery to repair my broken ilium (cycling accident in April 2005) is now, just as my orthopod promised me, a thin little white line. If I wore bikinis at the beach (which I don't), it wouldn't even show. I'm less pleased with the large numb area on my upper thigh below it where a nerve was cut during surgery. Surgeon warned me this would probably occur. Kind of a bummer.

I do have one particularly heinous picture I had DH take while my surgical incision was healing, at a lawyer friend's recommendation. It shows butterfly bandages (complete with dried blood) from one end to the other, along with a nice red incision. I won't subject y'all to that one!

Emily

[margo49]

Just came back to this thread only to find that I had missed my (Warhol-ian) 15 minutes of fame.

[Meaux]

I have my one and only cycling scar on my right calf. I fell on a path that was like riding on a cheese grater (DH got a flat!) and road rash-ed a good 6 inch patch on my leg. I wore skirts and gauchos to work all week so I could show it off. It's like my badge of honor!! I fell again last week (stili getting used to those new clipless pedals!) and re-scraped some of the old rash and got a heart-shaped bruise on one heiney cheek and a bow-tie-shaped one on the other. Tee hee! My bike has scars from that first crash too.

[kaian]

I rode my bike a lot when I was a kid. When I was 7, I thought I would get fancy with my riding and try riding really fast while zig-zagging (turning the handlbars right-left really fast). I ended up turning the front wheel too far one way and basically crashing face first onto the pavement. When I got up, one of my front teeth (a permanent, adult tooth) was knocked out, but still hanging by a nerve. A neighbor lady was kind enough to get my mom and my mom and aunt drove me to the dentist. I remember my mom telling me to hold my tooth in, so the dentist could re-attach it.

The dentist was able to re-attach it by wiring it to the tooth next to it until it could grow back in place. I had to eat through a straw for a while!

More recently while MTBing, I was flying down a trail (too fast) and came up upon the gravel section. At the last minute I realized that new, loose gravel had just been put down. I tried to slow down, but my front tire hit it and just kind of sunk in causing me to fly off of the bike, roll/skid down the gravel hill and then roll into a bunch of pokey sticks/brush. I had a huge gash on my back from sliding down on the gravel. The shirt I was wearing still has the blood stain. hahaha.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I've had a couple of little bloody scrapes on my legs so far, but they have healed with no scars.
I'm kind of envious of some of you! (but I hope I don't get any really serious injuries, of course)

[silver]

I just have a couple of small scars. The first is from a slow motion fall over due to user error




This other is the imprint of my big chain ring. I don't know how it happened. I was racing my first tri and someone told me while I was running that my leg was bleeding.