Check ride

For the first time in 6 weeks I pumped up the tires today and headed out on the bike.  To backtrack a bit, on the Passo Furcia descent (in late August) I couldn't slow down sufficiently before a switchback end, a car was ascending in the opposite direction so I couldn't use that lane, and I exited the roadway and fell.  Luckily there wasn't a sheer cliff or anything, just lots of rock.  The folks in the oncoming car stopped and helped me, decided I was hurt bad enough to call pronto soccorso and very kindly stayed with me until they arrived.  Pronto soccorso folks decided since my helmet was cracked I should see a doctor, so they hauled me and my bike down the hill to Brunico.  They xrayed my head and said no problem, but then checked my shoulder (bloodied on the back) and said I had a ligament contusion.  So I stayed the night and drove home the next morning.  Very nice folks at the hospital in Brunico (or Bruneck, because everyone speaks German there).  BTW I didn't mention all this in the Passo Furcia ride report because I thought it wasn't that bad of an injury, and I didn't want to detract from the climb description with extraneous details.

As it turned out the shoulder didn't heal very quickly (partly my fault because I continued with plans to drive to Switzerland and Tuscany in the following weeks, and kept doing household chores, mowing grass, toting heavy grocery bags, etc).  I kept ice on it much of the time and took aspirin for the pain.

Anyway it felt good enough today to try a ride up the little hill to Grizzo.  I was too slow to catch a pack from GC Meschio on the ride home, but still felt good to be riding again.  I'll try to post some ride reports in coming weeks- I'm reading a book about World War I on the Italian-Slovenian border so I'm itching to go riding near the Soça River area.

Soça Dreams...
(foto by xxmystique)