Mike's Bike Blog

During my workout yesterday (Hill sprints. On 3-5% hill do 5-7 x 8-12 second) I took a nasty fall. I was out on Sprinkle Road, the intersection of Ferguson & Sprinkle has a short hill that averages 2.5%, perfect for the  days intervals. After the 1st interval I went back down and turned left onto Ferguson Lane and then turned around and made my approach back up to ready for the next interval. As I made the hard right turn off of Ferguson Lane onto Sprinkle Road I hit a small patch of water and my tires went right out from under me. In a blink of an eye I hit the pavement with my right elbow and hip. I proceeded to skid a few feet. I quickly jumped up to get out of the middle of the road. The cars there were on Ferguson turning left onto Sprinkle rolled down their window and asked if I was ok, same with a group of cyclists coming down Sprinkle that turned onto Ferguson. So I had quite a large audience to witness my Sprinkle Spectacular.

We're in the middle of a drought here in Central Texas, so how and why was there water on the road? There is road construction going on, it looks like they are extending Sprinkle road so there are construction crews in the field. At the time I started my workout there were 2 vehicles parked in the median at the Sprinkle/Ferguson intersection. When I came down Sprinkle after my first interval one of the foreman in the median had a big jug of water. I speculate that for whatever reason he spit or poured out water onto the road. Thus on my next time through causing my tires to slip when I made the 90 degree turn.

My hip and arm took the worst of the crash, the bike came away unscathed (some minor scratches to the right pedal).  My hip swelled up with a softball sized hip pointer with a little road rash on it for good measure. The worst road rash is from my elbow to the middle of my forearm. It burned a hole in my long sleeve base layer. Surprisingly my Sugoi bib shorts didn't sustain any damage, not sure how that happened.  The entire right side of my leg is sore and I pulled some tendons in my foot in the process as well. Again, nothing major, just some minor hobbling around. In fact I finished the other 6 hill sprints.