Nuts About Cycling: The Next Call After a Broken Collarbone

My collarbone after I crashed

Twenty-five years ago, in 1994, I decided to get a vasectomy, but it was spring and I knew it would mean a week or more off the bike.  I thought I would wait till cold weather in the fall.

One Saturday in April of that year, I was riding rolling hills. I went down a mile-long hill in an aero tuck until I could feel the bike losing momentum.

I stood up to crank hard on the pedals and attack the hill. 

Then I was in the ditch on the side of the road.  When I stood, my right crank snapped in the middle.  I flipped over the handlebars and landed on my shoulder. 

In the ditch I tried to get up, but when I moved my right arm, I heard crunching coming from my collarbone—like potato chips were being stepped on.

I had smashed my collarbone.  A nice person with one of those big early cell phones came by and called me an ambulance. 

At the hospital, the emergency room doctor stuck his finger in my shoulder at the site of the break. I groaned in pain. He smiled.

“You smashed the collarbone,” he said.  “It will heal up great with no surgery if you don’t move it too much.” 

They strapped my right arm to my side and sent me home.  For the next three weeks I heard a lot of crunching if I moved the wrong way. 

Then I realized this cloud had a silver lining.  Monday morning, first thing, I called the urologist and said, “Can you get me in this week?”  They had an opening on Thursday. 

When I showed up the nurse and then the doctor asked if I wanted to let the collarbone heal up before the surgery. “No,” I said. “I’m in pain anyway. Let’s go.”

The collarbone healed, the surgery was successful and if someone asks how much I love cycling, I can say, “I’m nuts about it.”