Holy shit, what did I just run over???

After running for Purdue and San Diego St. 1980-1982, my knee problems were becoming persistent. So in '83 I started doing more cycling than running, and in '84 (it was an 8yr college tour) I joined San Diego St.'s cycling team, one of the stronger collegiate cycling teams in the nation.  

Each morning we would go out for rides of 50-100 miles. I was still a relative newby when a guy showed up for an early morning ride with an Ace-bandage wrapped around and above his knee. I'd never seen him before, but the veterans seemed to know him well. It struck me as curious that he'd be going for one of our hard rides with a knee problem so severe that he'd have an elastic bandage tightly wrapped around the knee. I thought that if his knee was that screwed up, maybe he should take the day off. I was a newby though, and therefore kept my opinions to myself.

The ride was just getting started so we were warming up. A couple dozen of us--all brightly clad in lycra, our shaved legs effortlessly spinning on exotic Italian steeds in the quiet and cool morning shortly after dawn. In an hour we would be pushing hard up the hills of East San Diego County. We were young and competitive so every hill was a chance to for a "win" in the training ride. We were in a "double-paceline" so there were two rows of riders spinning easily during the warm-up and casually shooting the bull. Soon the pace would increase to some hellish thing which we'd maintain for the rest of the ride. Or, in my case, maintain for as long as I could "hang".  Some of the group were national class cyclists, so if they decided to go hard, I was doomed to fall off the back and make my own way back to the school.

After 15min of cruising, the pace started picking up. I'd been in the rear of the paceline while we warmed up--as befit my station, so as we slowed approaching a red light, I was still in the rear. The light then went green and everyone jumped up out of their saddles and accelerated.  

Then the impossible happened.  

About a dozen guys in front of me, visible only in brief glimpses through all the other riders, I saw something so unlikely that my brain didn't accept what my eyes had just transmitted. The event was just too impossible. It was hard to tell because it was only a couple scattered glimpses, but I'd just swear that one the cyclists in front of me just lost his leg. I mean I saw his leg fall right off. One moment we were all up out of our saddles accelerating, and the next, the guy's severed leg was on the ground.

The guy and his bike hadn't gone down. This was not a crash. The only thing on the ground was the leg. I was paralyzed with shock and my eyes were wide as saucers. Only a half-second had elapsed. Then riders in front of me reflexively dodged or jumped their bikes to avoid the obstacle. My jump proved to be inadequate and I clipped the rolling leg pretty hard, barely retaining control.

I had just jumped my bike over someone's severed leg. I was so confused that my brain wasn't really working.

 Out of the columns of riders in front of me, one moved outboard and started to hook back around. He was looking back behind me. He was the guy with the Ace-bandage. His spinning form was all screwed up though. He wasn't balanced, he was weirdly "rocking" in the saddle. I looked closer and realized that he was riding with only one leg. For christ's sakes, he was missing a leg. That's why he was circling back. He had to go back and fetch his other leg. "What the fuck was going on?" I wondered.

Uncharicteristically, the leaders slowed down and brought the whole group to a stop. I looked back to see what was happening. Ace-bandage guy had stopped, picked up his leg, and appeared to be putting it back on. It was a prosthetic leg.

He turned out to be a pretty darn strong cyclist. More power to him.