After the fall. My reward for getting back on the bike after a crash in the coastal mountains was this awesome stretch of road, chiseled into the side of Neahkanie Mountain, about 700 feet above the Pacific Ocean.

I was sighting my line down the mountain, running at 20, maybe 22 miles per hour, focused on a curve 200 yards below when I felt the rear wheel slide out from under me.

I knew there was ice on the road, but I couldn’t see it. I could feel it in the way the bike handled on the flats. I got off and ran my hand along the pavement. It was smooth like gymnasium tile. I jammed the back tire down on the chip seal, but it wouldn’t grab. So I started walking, sometimes riding, on the narrow gravel shoulder until the road felt dry again, and then I’d get back on the bike and ride until it began to slip.

There had been far too much of that along this 15-mile stretch of Highway 53, and I was worried. I was riding a 200K permanent route and I had to make it make it up to Cannon Beach before time expired. The freezing fog and the black ice were putting a damper on what should have been an epic, solo ride along the the spectacular Northern Oregon Coast.

The fog had been hiding the sun most of the morning. But it was lifting, and the temperature had warmed to 34 degrees when I reached the crest of the ridge. I could see from there that the road back down the mountainside was a series of switchbacks and twisties. Just the sort of payback you’d want after a 1000-foot climb from sea-level.

One more time, I got off the bike. I knelt on the tarmac and I ran my glove across the asphalt. It was dry as a bone. I heard a car coming, the third one I remembered seeing since I left the start three hours earlier. Three hours to ride 15.5 miles …

“I need to turn the pedals or I’m going to DNF before I make the first control.”

I stood up. I stared at the car’s tires as it rolled past me. It seemed solid on the road as it made its descent into a canopy of Doug Fir. So I got on the bike and it began to roll. I let off the breaks and I was flying. Gold and silver shafts of light were hitting the road ahead of me.

“I’m through it. It’s behind me. Let it go.”

Then came the feeling that I was floating. It was a feeling so familiar that I didn’t resist. I’ve felt this way a thousand times before, falling from the lip of a breaking wave.

As I went down I pulled my focus back up the road to see what was happening near the bike.

“I’m crashing…”

I felt my hip hit the ground – hard. Then, the back of my head hit. I held my breath.

“It’s soft.”

The helmet had done it’s job.

I think I got up quickly, but I really can’t be sure. I walked quickly to my bike. It was in the dirt on the side the road. I lifted it and inspected it. The chain was off the chain-ring, but it wasn’t broken. The left-side brake lever was ground down and torqued inward toward the stem, but it pulled the cable just fine. The Bertoud front bag was torn, but it was firm on the rack, unopened.

More thoughts began to flow: “My head hurts. Do I have a concussion? Can I ride? I’d better sit for awhile.”

But I didn’t sit down. I felt as though I was in a hurry. I got on the bike and I started to ride. I was on the clock and this damned crash had cost me valuable time that I didn’t have.

As I rode I began to get feel pain in the places that had hit the road. My wrist, shoulder, head, neck and back were all lighting up pretty good. My hip was sore, and I thanked God I hadn’t broken it. I thought about my friends Steve Rex and Ed Pavelka. Both suffered broken hips in similar crashes.

“Just make it down to the next control and we’ll see how you’re feeling there.”

That’s the way it is when you rando. You push for the next control and you save the big decisions for later, after you’ve made the cut-off.

On that day, like so many others before it, I made it there in time. I looked at my watch. There were 50 miles of coastline between Cannon Beach and the next control just west of Tillamook. The weather looked good, I had plenty of time in the bank again. I filled my water bottles and got back on that bike and I didn’t even think about the pain. No cuts, no breaks, only bruises this time. I got off lucky. Thirty years on the bike have leached the calcium from my bones and I know one day my number will come up.

No use worrying about that now… I figured the best thing to do is keep the pedals turning and get on down to the next control.

Tags: Black ice, Crash, Oregon Coast

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