Cambridge Non-Fondo
This month’s Gran Fondo was planned to be a nice flat-ish 215k round trip to Emma’s Mum’s pub just outside of Cambridge. One of the best things they do is the Sunday Carvery. I’m staunchly against eating roasts in pubs as I always think you can do better at home, this is my only exception, and worth travelling for.
We met at 7.30am outside Balfes in Kennington then met Paul outside the Hackney Empire a little later and followed a similar route that we had taken on the Dunwich Dynamo out towards Epping. I had been off the bike all week due to holiday and also managed to have a few more drinks than I had planned the night before which wasn’t an ideal start. It was pretty cold out too and each time we stopped for a breather the cold set in.
As we headed towards Epping there were plenty of other riders on their Sunday rides heading out of the city. Plenty of nods and ‘mornings’ were shared. My legs felt entirely dead and I generally felt pretty lifeless. By the time we’d got to 50k I was struggling mentally with how I was going to get through 215k. Maybe I hadn’t eaten enough I thought but I just didn’t feel as comfortable as I normally did. Maybe four hours sleep and a hangover really wasn’t helping.
As we turned off on the western loop of the route we were treated to a number of views back towards London framed in the mist. I finally succumbed and stopped to grab a photo. It really was such a beautiful morning and the cold mist created so many beautiful views along the lanes and woodland surrounding.
We swung from picturesque village to village at a reasonable pace, although it was still cold and had barely warmed up since we started. Escaping the heat sink of London the temperature dropped rapidly and the occasional downhill section found me pulling my jacket tight around my neck.
As we came round one corner the road felt a little greasy. I was about to shout out to take it easy, we were only doing 20kph-ish, but before I had time I heard a blood curdling yelp from James who had gone down hard on the same corner. Paul slid a bit behind him but managed to stop, although on his side, but without hurting himself.
We picked James up and un-tangled him from his bike to get him out of the road. Even though it was a narrow country road it was a blind bend and locals usually drive round them pretty quickly in my experience. We tried to assess how badly he was hurt. James started saying his knees hurt and yes they were both grazed and he had plenty of road rash on one side. At this point he hadn’t noticed a large laceration above his eye which was spurting a healthy amount of blood down the side of his face. We didn’t have anything with us to stop the bleeding so had to use his nice yellow Defeet gloves! Sorry James. We then wrapped him up in whatever other clothes we had left without getting too cold ourselves.
I felt pretty shaken up by it all and Paul and I clearly looked at each other in a slight state of shock. I started to wonder where the fuck were we and how the hell were we getting James out of this? The area we were in suddenly felt very isolated and remote, although in reality it wasn’t. We tried to work out whether we should be calling an ambulance for him as the cut and road rash on their own wouldn’t require one really and if we weren’t getting an ambulance how the hell we were getting to hospital for stitches. As we talked to James more we realised that he was pretty concussed and Paul saw that he had knocked himself out for a few moments when he hit the deck. When he asked the same question for a third time we both realised that it was time for 999. Fortunately we had enough signal for a call and managed to load a map with GPRS to find which village we were nearest. Making that call felt strangely emotional, like the situation you were in was slightly out of your control as well as obvious concern for him. Within 25-30 mins a paramedic responder was with us, checking him over and trying to establish a few key details from James. This was harder than it sounded due to his concussion. He couldn’t tell the paramedic a number of things which was pretty shocking to hear as I’d never really experienced someone with concussion before. Simple questions just couldn’t be answered, like whether he worked or was a student, what month it was, where he lived and so on!
We started to piece together what had actually happened. The glasses he was wearing had broken as he had gone down and then cut his eyebrow open. He’d also landed on his cheek and the side of his helmet although the helmet hadn’t really offered much protection in his instance, as well as a bit of a slide on his hip and knees.
During this time Paul and I were looking out for traffic trying to make sure another accident didn’t happen. So many people stopped to see if we were ok and many more simply rubber necked. The thing I found most frustrating was that I didn’t have anything on me that would have stopped bleeding in a more serious accident. I resolved to put a small kit together to take with me in my jersey with a few sterile dressings and medi swabs. It also reminded me of coming off last December on a diesel patch in Bath. The helplessness of it all was brought home, one minute you’re up, next millisecond your wheels have gone from beneath you and you’re sliding across the tarmac. Terrifying!
We kept talking to James and answering the same questions as well as just generally telling jokes and stories to keep the mood light.
How did I get here? I was just up a moment ago, I don’t understand. Where am I? How did I get here?
The paramedic was amazing and was clearly not phased by it all. His presence made it all feel a lot less fucked up. After getting to grips with James’s injuries and doing blood pressure etc he called in for an ambulance to take him to hospital. We packed him off and then wandered down to the local village to find a safe space to store his bike until I could come back later in the van to collect it. We found a family that let us keep it in their barn out the back of their beautiful garden.
After all this Paul and I decided we would push on an get lunch after all. That 35k seemed to drag on forever with my hangover still raging and the shock of it all still present in my mind as well as my legs still feeling dead. Soon enough we got to The Chequers and Maureen kindly sorted us out with a big plate of food from the carvery, after laughing at my pink overstocks first though.
Desert was also kindly offered and duly accepted before getting the train back to Liverpool Street. On the train back we found out that he was out of hospital with 8 stitches and some severe swelling. So much so that they couldn’t X-ray his cheek to find out of he’d broken the cheekbone.
After that I headed home, carefully, and then drove back in the van to the scene of the accident to collect the bike. It was pretty weird covering the same ground again and going past that corner.
A strange and slightly surreal day overall. We didn’t get Fondo but I don’t think I could have done the full ride anyway, who knows if we could, but we still covered 105k and saw some nice scenery. It’s going to have to wait for another day anyway this month. Needless to say my ride to work on Monday was taken pretty slowly and I was terrified of most corners just thinking of it all.
Get well soon James.
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