On Jan. 13 I was biking to the grocery store. It is only a few blocks away so I never wear my helmet, especially since there is no way to secure it to my bike when I lock it up at the store. I used to take the boardwalk most of the way to the store, but lately I’ve started to take some small, less crowded back streets.

I was only going about 10mph when I made the final turn. There are many small and angular potholes on this street but I don’t think there was any gravel or sand. My back wheel let go as I turned left. I corrected by leaning right and the bike stopped. My momentum carried me into the air and since my feet were in toe clips, the bike was coming with me. At some point, my front tire blew out. I’m assuming that when I corrected the tire wedged into the side of a pothote and that’s why I went flying.

My right landed on the pavement and I got road rash on my right knee and elbow. The bigger issue was that to prevent my head from hitting the ground, I stuck my left arm across my body and planted my palm into the ground so hard that it did not even slide. So there is no road rash on my hand, but the bones in my arm took a beating. I knew I could not use my arm immediately and the pain was the same as if it were broken (I’ve broken enough bones to know).

After a few days, my shoulder seemed to no longer be sore, my wrist and palm were in better shape, but I could barely put any weight on my arm or make a fist. On day 4, a bruise on my inner left elbow appeared and got worse over the next few days.

It is day 8, and I now wear an ace bandage on my forearm because that is where most of the pain is. My elbow is fine and I can make a fist, but rotation of my forearm hurts like hell.

It sucks that I can’t ride my bike, but I’m glad my arm is not broken because that would take me out of commission for longer. And lessoned learned: I’m always going to wear my helmet. I’ll try to be recording on my GoPro as well, so if I crash again, at least I can get some good footage.