When I Shattered My Face

I didn’t want to put an actual photo up. It would probably be against Terms Of Service.

Seriously, if medical details are not for you — don’t read this.

This an account of me shattering my face in 2012.

My cycling team and I had ridden out to Claudio’s Dock — a destination spot here on Long Island. The planned ride was there and back, something like 65 miles.

For breakfast/lunch I had a fabulous Ahi wrap which was a hybrid Mexican/sushi thing. This may sound like an extraneous detail. It is not, just wait.

Upon riding back, we rode through a street fair — man, that’s a challenge.

Then we got back to the highways, where we ride on shoulders and bike paths, which are really decent on the north shore of Long Island.

I was riding next to the leader of the club, discussing where we might ride in the next few weeks. We were right next to each other, as we often are to talk, doing in the 20 MPH range.

When you ride as far and as often as we do, you get used to road hazards. When you ride over a storm drain, which is sometimes unavoidable, generally you just lift up a bit off the seat so you don’t take a possible bump right to the hips.

As we were next to each other, I was closer to the curb, he was closer to the street. The shoulder we were in was narrowing to about 3 feet up in the distance, so he began to pull…