One year since my big bike accident
Background
As I come up on one year since the accident that broke my nose, I’ve been reflecting on what’s changed. I think it’s important to take stock sometimes — to give yourself a yardstick for what you’ve done well or not so well, even if I’m not always great at actually doing it. One saying that’s been stuck in my head lately: “life happens to you, or you happen to life.”
The Accident
I honestly haven’t been into biking that long. A former housemate got me into it — I’d always been vaguely interested but never bothered to invest in something quality, something that was actually a joy to ride. I’m deeply grateful to him for selling me his old bike and “bike-pilling” me, as he liked to say.
Anyway, I’d organized a little expedition with some friends to ride around the Hyland Park Reserve area. Two of them dipped out early, but one buddy stuck around and we decided to explore some double-track trails that run through the ski area’s maintenance routes.
We were having a great time when we decided to wrap up and head out. At the top of the ski hill, I had what seemed like a great idea: cap the day with a fast descent down to the exit point. Fateful choice, as it turned out.
We started down and the angle was steep enough that I couldn’t see the drop until it was too late — a 10-15 foot gap where a service road cut across the slope. According to my buddy’s trip computer we were doing about 30 mph.
The last thing I remember is staring down at the gravel rushing up at me. I woke up in the ambulance, kept asking what had happened, convinced I was permanently disfigured. My last clear memory at that point was from about 30 minutes before the crash — still back on the grassy double-track — and I genuinely couldn’t piece together how I’d ended up there.
The Aftermath
After a day in the hospital I was sent home and tried to get an ENT appointment to have my nose straightened. The septum cartilage was badly displaced — not obvious from the outside, but quite a sight looking up from below.
I got in on an emergency appointment, but the ENT found a hematoma on arrival and had to drain it on the spot. That used up the window for manually resetting the nose, and by the time it healed, the cartilage had set in the wrong position. Rhinoplasty was the only option from there.
Getting that scheduled turned into its own ordeal — the earliest I could get in was November. For six months I wore nasal strips every waking moment just to breathe. It was my broken nose summer. And fall.
New Nose, Who Dis?
There’s a silver lining, I guess: I came out of it with a new nose. After 35 years you get pretty attached to the one you have. I used to have small insecurities about mine, but I’d grown into it, accepted it as part of who I was. The new one took some getting used to. It still does a little. But I like myself regardless of what I look like, so it never became a thing.
Mostly I just feel fortunate that I was in a position to get it corrected at all. Living with it broken was genuinely awful day to day.
I’m planning to go back to the site with the friend who was with me that day — he came out of it with a compression fracture of his own. We’ve half-jokingly debated whose injury was worse, but I always stop myself from going too far down that road. They were both bad in their own ways–our new joke is our (wholly amateur) cycling team name is the Gravel Eaters. The difference that’s stuck with me is this: I was back on my bike within a week because nothing was physically stopping me. That let me maintain my sanity and keep doing something I love. He didn’t have that option for months. In that way, whatever I went through, I was the lucky one.
Life happened to us both that day. What you do with it afterward is the part you get to choose.