Friday, July 3rd, everything worked. I rode 45.3 km and set a power PR, then went home and benched 213 lb for five sets — also a PR. Best training day I've had since I started this.
Saturday I was face-down on the pavement.
Same bike. Same rider. One day apart.
The bike showed up in April. Most of my riding since has been indoors on a trainer at camp, so Saturday was maybe my third real time out on open road. I'm good at some things now. Riding a bike in traffic isn't one of them yet.
I was almost home. Turning off the highway onto the street into my neighbourhood. I went to shoulder-check for cars, and as I twisted my neck left, my body torqued the other way for leverage. That's the last thing I remember clearly. Next thing I know I'm on the ground, ears ringing, not sure how I got there.
I stood up and got to the side of the road. While I was looking over the bike, the front tire blew with a bang loud enough to make me flinch. The handlebars were twisted about 45 degrees off the front wheel. Left leg full of road rash, knee bleeding, shirt torn at the shoulder.
I walked the rest of the way home.
The part that didn't get hurt
Here's what I keep coming back to. My knee's a mess. My shoulder's a mess. My head cracked the pavement hard enough that I was out of it for a bit and had a headache for days.
But I walked home.
The helmet did that. I don't mean that as a figure of speech. I came down hard, right on my head, and the worst thing I carried away up there was a rung bell and a few bad days. Without it, I'm not writing this. That's not me being dramatic — it's just what happens when a skull meets asphalt with nothing in between.
Everything else on that bike is built to make me faster. The power meter, the tires, the watch. The helmet is the one piece I bought hoping I'd never actually feel it work.
Saturday I felt it work.
What the crash cost
Let me run the numbers, because that's what I do.
Item | What it cost |
|---|---|
The helmet (one-time) | $136 |
Front tire (I straightened the bars myself) | $35 |
Training days lost (Jul 5–7) | 3 days |
What the helmet saved me | Can't put a number on it |
The bike damage was annoying and cheap. I twisted the handlebars back into line myself. The shop charged $35 for the front tire. That was the whole repair bill.
Sit with that for a second. The crash did $35 of damage I could see. The helmet that stopped the rest cost me $136 — nearly four times the tire, and the best money in the whole kit.
The 3 days off hurt worse than any of it. My Garmin log for July 5th, 6th, and 7th is blank. Nothing. After weeks of stacking rides and lifts around 12-hour shifts, I sat on the couch with a headache and did nothing. That's what you're supposed to do.
Then there's the last row. The one with no number. That's the whole point.
The math nobody runs on a helmet
Nobody's excited to buy a helmet. It doesn't make you faster. Nobody compliments it. It sits by the door looking like a chore you paid for.
But run the cost-per-use on it the way I'd run it on anything. You don't count your car's full sticker price every time you drive to work. You spread it over every trip. Do that with a helmet and the number is basically nothing. Pennies a ride.
Now put the other side on the scale. One crash. What that crash could have been runs from "expensive" to "I don't get to keep training, or worse." The helmet is the cheapest thing in my kit, and it's the only one insuring against the top of that range.
That's not a gear opinion. That's arithmetic. Best return on investment of anything I own, and I hope I never collect on it again.
Rest isn't the tough part. It's the right part.
One more thing, because I don't want to tell this like it's a highlight reel.
A head injury isn't something you push through. I'm not a doctor, but you don't need to be one to know that ringing ears and days of headache after cracking your head means you stop. So I stopped. Three days off, then I eased back in easy. No hero return, nothing to prove.
If you go down and hit your head, get it looked at. Take the days. The training will still be there. The alternative might not be.
Progress isn't a straight line. The same stretch that handed me two PRs also handed me a concussion and a torn shirt. Both are true. You don't get the good version of a new sport without occasionally getting the pavement version too.
Buy the helmet. Wear the helmet. It's the best money in the whole setup.
Next week I'm back on the money side of things.
Forward this to one person who rides.
— Kiegan