"Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life."
So said Lady Bracknell in the "Importance of Being Ernest". I wonder, then, what she would have made of the modern sympathy with cyclists with broken clavicles?
Barely a day goes by in the Tour de France without one "poor malnourished individual" (as one fellow tweeter called them) lying by the side of the road, one arm hanging inactively whilst the other hands extends across hold it in an attempt to numb the pain. There then follows a deluge on twitter of pictures of the aforesaid injury usually accompanied by an optimistic pithy statement like "he's going to need surgery".
Poor Frank Schleck is the latest of appear in Twitpic glory looking forlornly at his brother Andy's iphone with his arm in a sling. Frank further illuminated us with the xray picks of his op with multiple titanium plates in place. It's a good op apparently and Frank will be hammering his turbo trainer within days.
If you look further every one seems to be doing it. Lance Armstrong did it last year and shrugged it off noting he'd cheated cycling lady luck for too long and even he had to succumb to the inevitable bike crash broken collar bone. Even class doesn't make you immune either. I read just last week that top royal tottie Zara Phillips took a fall off her pony and yes broke her collar bone. My injury reading was a biography of the great Italian cyclist Fausto Coppi. Poor lad took a fall in one of the first Giros after WW2 and yep you guessed it broke his collar bone.
I know what all this like because six weeks ago I did exactly the same thing though I can scarcely describe myself as malnourished. I hopped around the side of the road for a bit, extended my good arm to hold the bad one and looked at my Trek hoping that it was not irreparably damaged (good news it came off fine - well done clavicle you took the fall so that the Trek might live). There then followed a ride in an ambulance for the first time since I was three and then being stretchered into A&E in full cycling gear - it might have been the laughing gas but wow that felt great!
Four years ago on the other hand I took a very innocuous fall and dislocated my shoulder. Could I find anyone who had done the same thing? Certainly not any cyclists who didn't seem remotely daft enough to get an injury like that. In fact in around 6 weeks of rehab the only fellow dislocees I could find were Bryan "Captain Marvel" Robson - the image of him walking off the pitch in Mexico 86 was all that filled my mind when I was in A&E getting it put back in - and Mark Lawrenson, who kindly noted whilst commenting during the 2006 World Cup - "a dislocated shoulder is the most excrutiating pain you will ever feel". Ah thanks Lawro I think we both understand each other.
So of course avoid all crashes, accidents and the occasional falls that happen if you are going to take a road bike and ride it down a hill at some speed. But if you are going to give something a whack breaking your collar bone means that you will find no shortage of better, fitter, richer and more handsome cyclists who can say to you "I've been there too and I know your pain".
Ride safe.
