Mountain biking is a rugged sport. Possible injury lurks around every turn. Angry Ontario trees grabbing at your arms, ready to jump in front of you at the last minute. Grumpy rocks who bend rims and break pedals. And the dirt that grinds its way into the slightly scrape. I don’t want to sound glib, but the risk of injury is real; perhaps that’s part of what attracts many of us to the sport.

A short while ago while out for a ride in preparation for the Canada Cup, DMBA member Dan Gaudenzi had an accident. A rather bad one. He broke his leg. It was a spiral compound fracture. Here it is in Dan’s own words:

Yup, my season is over just as it started…  I went out Tuesday AM for one last training ride before this weekend’s Canada Cup at Hardwood Hills just north of Barrie before resting and recovering for the race.  Well, after 3kms of a planned 25kms, I had a simple front-end wash-out coming out of a simple corner and went down before I could un-clip my right foot (actually, I decided to not clip-out and tried to save it).  Well, the ground did it for me and ended-up giving me a compound fracture of the tib/fib 4” above the ankle, along with another break in the fibula just below the knee.  I spent an hour and a half sitting on the forest floor, holding the two pieces of my leg together just right so as to not pass out, until I finally got a signal on my mobile phone to call Sarah to send help.  Luckily, I had crashed right beside a numbered sign-post, so the emergency crew was able to hike down to me quite efficiently.  Just got home from the hospital a half hour ago with a whole bunch of titanium and stainless steel in my leg:  an 18” rod inserted through the length of the tibia and then a whole lot of screws to re-attach the lower half of my leg which snapped.  Realistically, I’m not going to be able to put any weight on it until 6 weeks, but I’m hoping with physio and getting under my chiro’s magnetic coil and ultrasound machine, I might be able to get that down to 5 weeks?  We’ll see, but the physiotherapist is going to have to reign me in, as I’m already thinking about getting back on the bike, hopefully by August – if at least for a light spin.  I can’t start physio for another couple of weeks, so all I can do is some core and upper-body work until then.  I’m not wasting any of this time, of which I will have a lot of!

Fortunately they had the technology and they rebuilt him. Now his leg has better material in it then his bike does.

Dan, on behalf of all the members we hope you make a speedy and full recovery.

Dan has something he’d like us to remember:

Remember to cherish every ride, as it could all end abruptly for 4-6 weeks (or longer) in an instant.  I’ve always said that even the worst day on the trail is better than the best day in the office, but that doesn’t include breaking bones on the trail!