I lost my ride for another year yesterday. After having located a rim for my Eagle, a 72-hole, 50-inch needle in a haystack in Colorado at Rocky Mountain HiWheels, I crashed so hard on my recumbent that I broke my left elbow in two places.  The cast  that resulted has to stay on for SIX agonizing weeks. They want me off my bike during that period of time!!

Just like my overcoming paralysis and all the many complications that resulted from my head injury before I went on the 16 year road of ups and downs that then finally got my comeback story, “Awake Again“, published, I know this setback will only bring good, if not great. And it is this pronouncement I make that, above all, speaks to all my advertisers and supporters. While I am greatly saddened that I won’t be riding from one coast to the other in America this year, in being honest with myself, I can now see I can deliver a much better ride in 2013!

It will allow me to take the focus off me and place it on the National Bicycle Greenway as I work to monetize our decade old, Mayors’ Ride campaign. It will allow me to better build “How America Can Bike and Grow Rich”, the Mayors’ Rides and my ride into the business plan that will bring about results getting traction for the network of bikeable roads and paths we foresee.

Not only have these Irish roads roughed my bikes up, but now, at least for the time being, they have claimed me. While they have made me a stronger rider, the one time I let my guard down to savor the beauty all around me, at 30 mph, my front wheel hit a rumpled part of asphalt that sent my legs flying. At downhill speed, the bike flew out of control and my elbow took the full force of the impact.

None of this would have happened had I been wearing cleats. However,  in trying to keep myself from developing instincts that are not Eagle friendly where my feet are not locked in, I do not run cleated pedals on any of the bikes I ride…

I take inspiration from the following: