Yesterday, a group of us (8) took to the trails up in Santa Barbara, taking a challenging but not desperate single track. One of the riders – Paul – was just transitioning from street riding to Muniing – a tricky segue on the step, rocky terrain in SB.
Understand that Paul is a gamer and a prince of a guy. Early on during the ride I clanked my crank on a rock, got bucked off and my Muni shot off and over a cliff. Paul saw where it landed and spent 30 minutes thrashing through poison oak to fetch it. Two hours and three miles later, only 100 yards shy of the road, Paul smacked his shin into a rock and despite burly plastic shin guards, broke his lower leg in half. This is a monumental bummer because Paul was so psyched on Muniing, and now he’s laid up for four months with a cast from ankle to mid-thigh.
I’m sure Paul would appreciate any notes from fellow Munieers to hurry up and recover; we’ll direct him to this thread to hear from any of you who have encouraging words for our friend.
Think about the story this will make for your children and grandchildren. I hope you will see the humor in that. Maybe not now, but at future rides, it makes a great story.
As John said, you must be a prince of a guy to go down THROUGH POISON OAK to retrieve a fellow munieer’s muni. That takes courage and just being nice. I believe that what comes around, goes around. That nice gesture will come back to help you one way or the other. It may even help during the recovery of the broken leg in some way.
I wish you a speedy and strong recovery. Looking forward to seeing you back on top! God Bless.
Ow!!! And after climbing through poison oak! Nobody deserves that. The poison oak alone would kill me (I always seem to pick it up). From the description, sounds like a compound fracture. Was he exaggerating? That would be nasty.
Look on the good side:
Better to get injured in the last 100 yards than at the turnaround point.
Better to get injured in the last 100 yards than the first 100.
If you get poison oak, you won’t be making it worse by riding a lot.
If you get poison oak inside your cast, you probably won’t be scratching it and making it worse
Here’s to hoping you heal fast and strong, better than new. We’ll be seeing and riding with you next year at MUni Weekend in Santa Barbara!
JL was definately not exaggerating. He broke both the tibula and fibula. In his words it was bascially a classic example of beginners confidence. He was doing great out there, knew the ride was coming to an end, and was pushing the limits with the equipment he had. The uni slipped on a slick spot and he folded his leg. The only thing that kept the bones in was the 661 hard shell shin/knee guards he was wearing. I couldn’t believe how composed he and his wife stayed during the whole ordeal. I’m not sure how I would have handled seeing my leg like that. I know paul will be up and riding as soon as he can!
A little irony to the whole ordeal which we laughed about later:
Paul got carried out on a litter but check out what was attached to the bottom. Thats right, he rode out on one wheel!
Paul - very sorry to hear about your muni injury. That must’ve been an amazing smash into the rock. I hope it doesn’t lessen your overall enthusiasm for unicycling. I know it’s a ways off, but once you’re out of the cast and working on building back up strength, unicycling (not hardcore Muni though) should be a great activity. When I broke my leg, it was bicycling that got me back into shape and allowed me to eventually heal all the way.
Best of wishes beaming at you for a speedy recovery.
OW! That sounds amazingly painfull, I did the same thing to my arm, snapped both bones clean through, though I think a leg would be more painful!
Very sorry to hear that. keep your spirits high and don’t be put off uniycycling!
Very sorry to read about this, and best wishes for a full recovery. Take it slow…don’t push to hard on the recover.
I also hope you get up and get “back in the saddle”. I think if you did a search of these fora (now that you have some downtime on your hands), you’ll find that unicycling–compared to other action sports–really doesn’t have a high injury rate. The good news is you may have just “checked off” your life’s allotment of uni injury. It’s all golden from here…
I hope you will see the humor in that. Maybe not now, but at future rides, it makes a great story.