In 2006, I had a serious bicycle accident and was very lucky/fortunate in many, many ways. Up to that point, I didn’t think too much about how quickly a bike ride can go really bad. I was mountain biking alone and then planning to meet up with Maggie who was road cycling. My first major mistake was that after I finished my planned ride, I still had some time before I had to meet Maggie so I decided to go into another area of the woods without alerting anyone. I had no cell phone and no identification. I was cruising down a hill, saw a log at the bottom and realized I was in trouble. That is the last thing I remember…
My next memory is standing next to my bike unable to make it move forward. I then realized my yellow biking jersey was all red??? I touched my face and realized my lip was severely messed up. I started walking as I knew I was losing blood and needed to find help. I was fortunate that I was familiar with my surroundings (I was at my family’s cottage in northern WI) and after about a mile or so walk, I was able to find someone who could drive me to the hospital in Bloomer (15 miles away). We found Maggie on the road along the way and were able to inform her of the situation. To make a long story short, I received over 100 stitches in my lip, had a hemotoma at the base of my tongue and later discovered I had a pretty severe trauma to the base of my brain around the vision center. It took me over a year to recover from the head injury and I still have a few issues with the head injury.
Things I learned that day:
- ALWAYS wear a bicycle helmet – my helmet was the first thing that saved my life that day.
- ALWAYS wear good protective eye wear – I happened to be wearing Oakleys and after rinsing lots of trash (wood, dirt and other unnamed debris) out of my eye the Dr asked to see my sunglasses. There were two huge gashes in the left lenses. Without those glasses, I would have probably lost my left eye.
- If you cycle alone, ALWAYS make sure someone knows your route, your start time and your expected finish and DO NOT deviate without alerting someone.
- ALWAYS have some form of identification on you and easily accessible to someone who may come upon you.
Since that accident I have had a few hangups about cycling:
- I do not like to bicycle alone.
- I am very careful who I bicycle with and I don’t like big groups
- I am a FREAK about helmets!
Well all of that has been workable for me until in June, when my schedule no longer allowed me to do many of the weekday workouts with the others training for Ironman. All of the sudden, I found myself needing to bicycle alone. At first I thought I would be just fine alerting a few friends of my route, my start and expected finish times and then texting them if I needed help. Well in theory that sounded good but my brain didn’t agree. I found myself experiencing what I would call anxiety attacks during my rides. My chest would tighten as I was descending a hill or leaving the city limits. My brain was not ready for this. I then started texting my “bike angels” at key intersections and points along my ride which was better but I still felt very vulnerable.
One week ago I was chatting with Andy Winga and he showed me a GPS tool he and Libby had on their phones which allowed them to locate where the phone was. The option they have is only available on my phone between phones on the same plan. I started looking for an application that would allow anyone (of my choosing) to follow me online. After a lot of searching and questioning of my cell service provider, Best Buy and friends, I found an application, GPS Tracker that did exactly what I was looking for. This app can be downloaded for FREE onto any GPS enabled cell phone and anyone with your username and password can track you online on their web site. The only downside to this application is that it is a HOG – both data and battery. Andy, Libby and I tested it on Tuesday night and it worked great until my battery died! Much more accurate than Andy and Libby’s tracking device on their phone. I tested it again Thursday night with my brother watching and it lasted the entire 30 mile ride, however we discovered the default of sending a signal every 5 seconds was a bit overkill for a bicycle, so I set it to 120 seconds, hoping that would save both battery and data.
Screen capture of the Instamapper tracking map.
Saturday, I did a 100 mile solo bike ride and was a little worried my battery wouldn’t last the entire time, so I took my Dad’s cell phone as a backup. The battery died at about 85 miles into the ride – about 5:30 hours running time. However, that was 85 miles of anxiety-free riding knowing that someone was watching my progress and knew where I was and even how fast I was going.
The GPS tracking can be turned on and off on your phone so you are not always being tracked. While I will still use my “bike angels” to text my route, start and finish, I will now also provide them with this information so they can check in on me if they don’t hear from me in a timely fashion.
My last suggestion for safety is to encourage everyone to purchase a RoadID. Going back to my accident, I did not have any form of identification on me or my bike. Even if I had ID on my bike, I left my bike at the scene of the accident so it would have done me no good. I now have a RoadID that I wear every time I am exercising. I also have added my emergency contacts into my cell phone under ICE.
If this information encourages at least one person to add one of the above safety measures, then my mission is fulfilled!
Safe cycling.