Show me your best bruises! (not for the squeamish)

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Mine have become the stuff of legend. A couple of months ago I even asked to be tested for Von Willebrand. It's a form of hemophilia that is equally common in men and women. It is genetic, but my mom was adopted and we don't know her entire genetic history...who knows what could be lurking in our bloodlines. My mom and siblings and I all bruise REALLY easily (my hubby likes to joke that I bruise if someone sneezes on me). I tested negative, but I'm still a freak. Here are some photos from yesterday's CX race (there were more crashes at this one race than at ALL the combined Fall series races with FAR more riders. Next time I ride this course I'm using my mtn. bike. The worst was a stretch of twisty, sandy single-track).



My muscles actually hurt more than my bruises. I fell at least 3x and a couple of those falls were really hard. I feel like I'd feel after a minor fender-bender. My shoulders really ached when I got out of bed this AM.

[Owlie]

OUCH.
I don't have a picture, but I had a massive one (or a hematoma) on my upper thigh from when I fainted due to dehydration in the school bookstore in 2007. I don't know what I hit on the way down, but it took a month to heal and left a divot in the muscle for a long while afterward...

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Oh, yeah...I expect these will leave some marks that last a while. I did a snowy cyclocross race back in mid-Feb. There was one stretch where I was trying to get around a kid who was weaving all over...and of course he wove towards me as I did so, forcing me into a tree. That left a knot on my shin that only seems to have disappeared completely maybe in the past few weeks. I still have a shadow of a hematoma I got last Fall mountain biking, too.

As a teenager I was thrown from a snowmobile onto an icy lake (my friend piloting the snowmobile lost control on the ice and the 2 of us went flying as the snowmobile flipped onto its side--I'm just thankful my leg didn't end up under it) and that hematoma on my hip left a shadow for at least a year. That was fun, since I was a cheerleader and every time I'd do a round-off the world got to see my dinner plate-sized bruise!

[Anelia]

A broken nose and face bruises.
I also have had a whole on one side of my abs and it hurt a lot more than the broken nose. I didn't want to make the surgeon who did the stitches nervous by making pictures of the wound. Anyway, he did a lousy job and after 2 weeks when we had to remove the stitches, the wound was not healed but infected and another surgeon had to clean it again (it hurt!). The whole recovery took me about a month and I was not able to ride a bike during this period. Not to mention the first two weeks were awfully painful. The whole was punched by my brake lever and it was about 2 inches deep. I was lucky that I didn't have any internal organs damaged.

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Oh...OW!!! What happened?! That infection would have almost been the scariest part. I'm glad that didn't get any worse.

[jobob]

Four days after my very first mtn bike ride ever, with SadieKate.

Yeah, I bruise easily.

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Egads...now THOSE are some SERIOUS bruises!!! How did you manage that? What did you land on and how fast?

[jobob]

Basically, I'm a klutz. I certainly wasn't going fast, I just skidded and tipped over & landed on some rocks on the side of the trail.

Heh, and then there was the time not too long after that when LeeBob & I went mtn biking with maillotpois. Lee took the brunt of that one. Though I managed a couple of nifty little falls as well. Guess I'm just not well suited to mtn biking.

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Basically, I'm a klutz. I certainly wasn't going fast, I just skidded and tipped over & landed on some rocks on the side of the trail.

Sounds like when I did this one, though I just landed on sand and roots:


I'm not well-suited to anything that takes grace or coordination...doesn't stop me, though. I'm a slow learner...

[GLC1968]

I don't bruise, at all.

I fell on my shin once, hit it so hard that I split the skin open through my jeans and yet I didn't bruise. 6+ years of rugby and my teammates thought there was something seriously wrong with me since I never had any 'war wounds' to show.

And when I fell and twisted my right foot so badly that I ripped my ligaments completely from my bones (and broke one bone) I had zero bruising...even after surgery. The only bruise I had was that tiny little dark spot on my 2nd toe. Even the doc was surprised!

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I wish I didn't bruise...here's from a few days after my ankle sprain. I had so much swelling that the actual bruising didn't look as bad as it likely was:

[Kalidurga]

Day 1 after a crash on the C&O Canal towpath--





By day 3, it was like an alien that took over my leg--

[snyderd25]

I have a chronic bruise on my stomach (my tummy is not fit for the internet)... I guess every time I stop, I fall into my handle bars. I am also chronically bruised on my bum... also not fit for internet posting.

[tzvia]

Oh gosh, I never thought to take pictures of my worst looking bruise.

I went mountain biking on day 3 of a rainstorm, (it was only misting that day) and on a downhill, my tires slid out near the top and I fell. The bike fell over on the left side, with the wheel in a hard left and the handlebar trapping my thigh against the toptube. Down the hill I slid with my leg trapped and the front tire digging into the dirt, pushing the handlebar in a death grip hold smashing my thigh.

At the bottom my left leg was numb and I though it was broken, so I took out my utility knife and managed to get some of the dirt removed from where the front tire had plowed itself into the trail so I could turn the wheel straight and free my leg. The feeling came back and it was not good. So I ripped a piece of my shirt off and used a small branch and splinted my thigh (I really thought it was broken the pain was intense). No phone, and no other people anywhere. I used my bike as a crutch and coasted what I could.

Well it wasn't broken. But the bruise was wrapped around the whole thigh, with the front so swollen with blood that it jiggled when I hobbled so I had to use elastic bandages to prop it up like a bra for big red boob. Never thought to take a picture.

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Wow, that sounds horrifying...and it's tales like yours that make keep me from mountain biking alone. I don't even like riding on the road by myself. I'm just so clumsy and am paranoid of being hurt and alone.