That is the exact thought that went through my mind when the car, whose value was less than my wheels pulled out in front of me while I was descending a hill at 35 mph. It was July 2011 and I was on my way to a family cook out on my wife's side. In fact I'd just passed her aunt's house and was so looking forward to arriving at the party and getting in the pool.
Suffice to say our plans changed that day.
Madone 5.2 OCLV 2006, Shimano Dura-Ace gruppo, Bontrager Race XXX Lite components, this was a "real" Madone. The year after this all Trek's were branded as Madone's.
There was nothing I could do except slam into the car. I was wearing a cycling kit that day whose primary color was red. The girl who hit me claimed that not only did she not see me, but that I did not attempt to brake. Uh huh, that is what she said as written down in the police report. I went into the driver side rear quarter panel, was thrown up and over the car and landed in the road. Thankfully no one else hit me and a former ER nurse was one of the motorists who saw what happened and helped me.
I was lucky that day in many ways. First and most important I lived. Physics dictate that a cyclist will always lose against a car. In my situation I lost but at the same time I won. The end of my ring finger was broken and I quickly removed my wedding band so that it would not cause any issues. I also got my HR strap off asap knowing they'd cut it off at the hospital. And the only other injury was a nasty gash in my right knee that came within millimeters of the bursa layer. Had that gash been deeper I'd have gone into surgery. There was some minor road rash too. Ultimately I walked out of the ER that day. A win right there for me.
The second way I was lucky, was that the Concord, NH, Police Officers who arrived on scene understood the bicycle laws in NH and knew not only did I have the right of way, the right to take the lane based on my speed but that the motorist did not yield to me and just pulled out right in front of me - she was at fault.
Again all too often the police are ignorant of the law and side with motorists. So much so that motorists can actually kill cyclists and get away with just a slap on the wrist.
The Madone 5.2 after the accident. The steerer tube blew out the head tube.
The other way that I was lucky was that I took the wrecked frame to a Trek Store that actually knew about the product they sold. The driver had a Progressive as an insurance carrier. I'd had Progressive as my insurance carrier once and knew how cheap they were. Something that was confirmed by an old friend of my mum who upon hearing about the accident warned me about them. This person ran an auto body shop with her husband and had lots of first hand experience.
Let's put it this way, Progressive spends more on their commercials then they do on customer claims.
The Progressive rep first claimed she was a triathlete, a claim that seemed dubious when she scoffed at the total value/ cost of my Madone. FYI, it was in excess of $10,000. Now I did not buy it all built up like that, no, I upgraded parts over time to get it to what I wanted. Then she went and used a NH bike shop, that has 3 locations - Concord, Nashua & ??? and it became apparent that the staff there did not know anything about the product they sold. I wasn't surprised because the shop in question wasn't worth going too. They've been around awhile, but that is all they have going for them.
So the Trek store had to argue that while yes Trek did make the 5.2, mine was closer to the 6.2 because it was made here in the states using the OCLV process and a bunch of other factors. The rep stalled. But then something happened.
The Adjuster Progressive sent to the Trek store saw the busted frame and said, out loud so everyone heard, "wow he's not in hospital." That's right it wasn't a question, it was a statement of surprise. After he left I got a call from the Trek store saying I should expect a check from Progressive soon. I then got a call from the rep I was dealing with and she confirmed that. Full value for the bike.
After that I dropped the ball when it came to the pain & suffering part of the compensation from them. I ought to have fought for more, because they fought me on what I deserved and ultimately I took about the same amount I got for my bike. I realize now I should have gotten double or triple that. Not because it'd have been a pay day, but my life was worth more than my bike was.
So once that was all done and dusted and the check was in hand and cleared I got to have the most fun in bike shops ever. I literally was able to get whatever I wanted and finally settled on a Cervelo S5.
Cervelo S5, base model frame, Zipp 404 wheels, SRAM Red grape, FSA K-Force Light Crank, 3T cockpit, Selle Italia saddle
When my wife & I got married we brought our bikes with us on the honeymoon. On the way to Cape Cod we stopped off at Landry's Bicycles, Natick, Massachusetts, a bike shop I'd discovered the year before and had grown to love right away. I'd recently bought a new saddle for the Madone and was having trouble with it. The bike fit guy, Andy, helped me out and suggested I get a bike fit done, a real proper one. So we scheduled one for the day we were coming home.
At first, it felt weird riding in the new position that Andy put me in, but then something happened. It became natural to me and I noticed a subtle change in my power output and performance. Well when I got the S5 I knew that I'd also get a bike fit. Andy had upped his game in the interim and had some new tools and toys with which to fit a rider to their bike.
One of the items he now used was a pad that an individual sat on and mapped their sit bones. It's how I choose the saddle in the picture above and as a result something marvelous happened.
By the time I got the S5 it had been nearly 2 months since I'd been off the bike. My weight had gone up due to stress eating and because I had to let my body heal I'd not done any gym work. I rode 75 miles that first day. My wife played the roll of sag wagon that day. I rode as far as I could and then had her come get me. I hurt all over except one place - my ass. That saddle fitting meant I got the right saddle for me and thus it supported me where I needed it, etc. etc.
Whenever I see cyclists on group rides that are shaking their hands out or shifting etc on the saddle I know they haven't gotten a bike fit. They just set it up the way that someone thought it should be set up. There's an old school mentality about slamming the stem so there is no space between it and the frame - like how most pros bikes are set up. IT looks cool, but not everyone can ride in that extreme a position nor should they.
The point of a bike fit is to maximize your position to get it dialed in as best as possible, while still maintaining your maximum power. I've had Andy update my position a few times. The first was when I put aero-bars on the S5. April - October, the S5 is a commuter rig and I wanted to get to work as quick as possible, so having aero bars meant I could get into a Time Trial position and be more aero and faster. Well I had to have Andy adjust my position to account for those bars and to make sure I was aero as I could be and still put out power.
Thanks to Andy I found out that one leg was shorter than the other. That's another thing the bike fit helped with and explained why for the longest time I could not ride without holding the bars. One result of the bike fit was I could now ride sans handlebars because I was completely balanced on the bike.
In the spring of 2015 I went and visited a chiropractor who got my legs to within millimeters of one another and I've done a lot of work since to close that gap. So Andy adjusted my fit again and it got me lower.
Here I am at Landry's Natick, Andy is off to my right looking at the monitors I am looking at, he's got 2 cameras pointed at me. My wife is taking the picture and took note of the gal behind me checking my back side out...
Cycling is expensive and I am always stunned by the folks who will spend thousands on wheels, frames, etc. Yet, will still adhere to old school notions of how a bike should look. Or they balk at spending a few hundred to get fit. The bike fit was the best money I have ever spent. And now as my wife is looking to get a bike this spring, her getting fit is not even a question.
If you have more than one bike and are fit to both, then it's amazing you don't even notice a difference when you ride them.
Since I started taking Pure Vitamin Club Magenesium my flexibility has increased A LOT. No seriously it has. Since I saw that Chiro, I've been doing the flexibility stuff she prescribed, but I was literally stuck at a certain point. But now I can actually get into child's pose. So perhaps later this year I'll pay another visit to Andy and see if I can get lower. It's all about next steps...
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