Apparently OK on both counts!

So – After just about 9 months, my busted scapula and the associated nerve damage were obviously a lot worse than I ever imagined after my first few hospital trips. I fairly soon gave up on the NHS – it’s never done (been able to do) anything much beyond simple first aid for me in the last 15 years I have had occasion to visit. Fortunately, I am in a position to take myself private when the occasion warrants and my shoulder was certainly one of those occasions! I paid to see one of the most highly rated folk in the country and after lots of CT scans (I think I glow in the dark!) and several consultations, I learnt that basically, surgery was out (too fucked up to risk it!) so time and physiotherapy were the options.

Time of course has been the great healer (plus an attractive South African physiotherapist – who has been well trained in massage which albeit painful, worked wonders). So here I am 9 months later, able to ride a bike on the road, with perhaps 90% movement in my shoulder and strength that varies from 10% to 90% depending on what I ask it to do. Naturally that calls for a celebration, so I am off to the USA for a 4000 mile trip through the USA and Canada with my buddy Jed whom I met on the trip to Tierra del Fuego.

“Here I am again after an unconscionably long time away. Some of that can be put down to recovering from my last accident, but laziness too has a part to play! That is one reason, I am back here, posting on Blogger and neglecting my other WordPress blogs. The frequent updates of the WordPress code, and the plugins I used were frankly depressing me because I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to keep up with them all. I have now decided to embrace old age rather than fight it which makes dealing with my expanding waistline, toleration for my own crustiness and a host of other ailments a whole lot more palatable!”

The accident occurred whilst I was riding my little TTR along a deep rut on a green lane in mid Wales.  My handlebars caught some undergrowth and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air before hitting the ground very hard.  My shoulder took the brunt of the impact although my right wrist and left elbow also got a pounding.

I lay in agony for what seemed like hours but must in fact have been no more than 10 minutes or so. Eventually, one of my riding companions, Nick, returned to see what had happened to me. He lifted my bike which relieved me greatly as it had been leaking fuel and although I could smell it there was nothing I could do about. Nick removed my helmet and helped me to the side of the trail. Soon afterwards, the other member of our trio, and Robbie, also arrived back to see what had happened. It was clear that I was in no position to ride the bike, also we seem to be miles from anywhere. Mobile phones we carried could get no signal so Robbie rode up a nearby hill and finally managed to get a signal. Upon his return he announced that helicopter would come and pick me up.

In point of fact the first people to arrive were a couple of paramedics being transported in a local farmer’s land Rover. Having examined me they realised that I couldn’t be taken by road and they called in the helicopter.

 I was taken to Hereford Hospital at about 1830 hrs where I was first seen by a doctor in A&E. After x-rays were taken, two orthopaedic doctors saw me.  At this stage a tentative diagnosis suggested that I had dislocated my shoulder, elbow and probably broken a collarbone. It certainly felt like it and in order to take x-rays they had to fill me with morphine, even so it felt as if somebody was ripping my arm off.

The following morning I was seen by a consultant who said that there appeared to be a crack in my shoulder blade but there was no dislocation of shoulder or elbow and no break of collarbone.  He suggested that I should seek an appointment at my local hospital to get more x-rays in a weeks time. I have now been for more x-rays including a CT scan, and in a few days I am due to see the consultant once more.

As I write this the pain is much reduced, and although my left arm stays mainly in a sling I am able to take it out for periods in order to move it about a little. This should hopefully prevent the shoulder joint seizing completely.

I normally type with two hands but given my present inability to do so I have started using a dictation program to enter text in the computer. It seems to be working fairly well on the whole, and I can actually “type” faster than I can do so normally.

Stemming from my promise to lead some of the Knobblies crew along the Kent lanes, I have been investing a lot of time and money on maps and GPS stuff. (OK I am a gadget freak and I know a real man would look at the clouds, the sun and find his way anywhere but I need all the help I can get and I just love the neat stuff that’s available now. After toying with several ideas, I finally plumped for a Satmap Active10 GPS unit to use off-road. It’s the only one to display real OS maps on a screen that is of a decent size. You can plan routes and track your position on the screen just as if you were working with a paper map and it’s bloomin’ marvellous. You can program routes on the PC and retrieve tracks etc as with most units and this works perfectly with the included software – provided that you have a Windows PC. There is no Mac software for it yet but I find it works just fine with Windows running under VMware. It’s not a cheap unit and the maps are expensive, especially in the 25k series but it beats the Garmin offering hands down. Garmin Topo maps are crap in comparison and whilst one could happily navigate with the Satmap as one’s only aid, the Garmin requires a paper map to make sense of its screen presentation.

An ancillary purchase has been the Columbus V900 GPS data logger that can record umpteen million track points. I got this because it was very well reviewed and I was fed up with my regular GPS units (Tom Tom and Garmin Street Pilot 2820) losing data as they filled up. The Columbis is tiny and is small enough to fit in a breast pocket and remain quite unnoticeable.

I shall try to find time to write up my conclusions about this stuff properly and in more detail as I think they could be useful to someone and I did spend a lot f time and money on the hardware I have bought and the time taken to investigate what was available and useful. This weekend will be a good cgance to give the new purchases a workout and please don’t blame me for taking a bunch of OS paper maps that I also bought recently – I have always been a bit belt and braces when it comes to travel.

I took the F800 which ran sweetly and the TKC80s are still in reasonable condition after the Italian trip, although I will likely change them before any longer excursions.

I appreciated the biker friendly attitude at the Cliff Restaurant!

First signs weren’t good! Not only was this lane not a Byway at all but even as a footpath, it looked rather less than inviting. Subsequent meanderings showed that I had misread the map and indeed it was meant to be a footpath rather than a Byway  – still..

I did find some lanes later – this one a bit too nice!

This one, very open.

The service wasn’t especially cheap but it has turned the bike into a usable machine which it wasn’t really before and in my view it wasn’t just money well spent, it was vital.

A few pix – first Clive on his GS1200 showing just how deep the gravel was. Then a few pix of yours truly enjoying himself.
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