Sunday 6 August 2017

Oh bugger!

Sunday was spent surveying some more green roads in the Peak District National Park on behalf of the TRF (Trail Riders Fellowship) unfortunately all did not end well.
Upon reaching the end of the fourth green road of the day, it turned to rough tarmac, that due to an adjacent farm entrance was covered in mud and descended steeply to T junction, just as I was approaching the junction, a car swung round into the road at speed, unable to make the very tight turn he swung right across onto my side of the road....

and stopped!

With the car completely blocking the narrow lane, I had two choices:
a) Run into the front of the car
b) Attempt to stop

Naturally I chose the latter but given that it was on a steep slope on broken tarmac covered in mud, not surprisingly the front tyre gave up the grip and down I went! Luckily I was only travelling at about 10mph but it still hurt as I went down hard on my right hip, even more lucky I stopped sliding before I hit the car!

The driver it turned out was trying to follow his sat nav to Buxton, so quite why he thought a narrow lane clearly marked as a No Through Road would take him there I don't know. Of course as is common with green roads it's not a no through road at all but I don't think he'd have got his old Rover 75 up here:
Clough Head
He did do the decent thing and helped pick me up but we decided it wasn't worth swapping details etc as there was no damage to the bike and I'm sure if I did put in a claim his insurance company would say I fell off for braking too hard! Maybe option A) would have been better financially?
At the time it seemed I just had a bit of a bruise on my hip anyway but unfortunately it turned out to be a bit more!
On arriving back at the van and taking my knee braces off, my right knee was rather sore, I think the brace was supporting it and masking the fact.
On stopping at the services on the way home it was clear all was not right and walking was a bit difficult.
Once I got home and finished cleaning up and putting the bike away it was clear all was not right and the knee was swelling and seizing up...
Cue a trip to the Urgent Care Centre at MK Hospital who told me to go straight over to A&E 
At least it was a relatively quick experience arrived at 22:15, triaged, examined, x-rayed, seen again, got a second opinion from an orthopaedic registrar and was home at 00:30!
Diagnosis was that there's no fracture just soft tissue injury but by now the knee had swollen up nicely, I was on crutches and a trip to fracture clinic was booked for Thursday to be doubly sure! 
The hip has bruised up very nicely....

And Fracture clinic have referred me for an MRI scan to find out what exactly i've done (but confirmed there's no fracture) and kitted me out with a very natty knee brace for the time being...

The worse part of it all was I couldn't make the Keilder Rally this weekend and lost my entry fee as a result and it doesn't look like I'm going to be back on the bike very soon!
😫