Like any decent small but decent cycling group, we’ve dreamt about designing and owning our own custom cycling kits. Unfortunately we don’t have the budget or funding to match our champagne taste. The very first Siklista kit was quite a simple design that was manufactured in China and I only had three jerseys made which is a shame.

A week ago from today I suffered my first major crash on a bicycle. I’ve been cycling now for three years and I have had near misses as well as low speed tumbles but nothing like this. The list of injuries sounds horrific – broken clavicle, eight fractured ribs, trauma to the heart and head, not to mention a broken a front tooth. I was knocked unconscious when my bike suffered a mechanical issue during a training ride with Dante near the Rooty Hill exit, the cause of the crash was due to the chain jumping off the pulleys which resulted in me losing balance during the sprint and deviating into Dante’s line on my right.

We were both knocked unconscious as we fell heavily onto the path at approximately 50 km/h, this section of the cycle way is a fast section and is often used as a 200 metre sprint section before the bollards. There was footage from the crash on my fly6 but I haven’t seen the full video as I haven’t been able to pick up my bike and inspect it. I know exactly what caused the crash but I want to gather the data from my Garmin computer and overlay it on the video to see how it happened before coming to a conclusion.

Thanks to a couple of good samaritans who found us and rendered assistance, we were able to get immediate medical help from the paramedics and was brought to the Emergency Department. I was in hospital for five days and Dante was discharged overnight with minor injuries.