I Crashed on a Cycling Trip. Here’s What I Did Next.

A crash on a cycling trip becomes a decision problem very quickly.

Not just: can I still ride?

Also: do I need medical care now, is the bike actually safe, what support is available locally, and how many bad decisions get made simply because you are dazed and trying to get back to normal too fast.

I learnt that properly on a ride descending from Bellagio alongside Lake Como toward Lecco.

Just before Nesso, a dog jumped out from over the guard rail. I had no time to avoid it. I clipped its hind legs, went over the handlebars, and rolled about 30 metres down the road.

This is not a dramatic story for its own sake. The useful part is what happened next, what I missed, and what I would now do differently on day one.

What happened immediately after the crash

I was dazed.

The bike looked mostly okay, or at least that was my first impression. That turned out to be wrong, but in the moment I was more focused on standing up and working out whether I was badly hurt.

The cars behind me stopped. The people in them were kind, helped me off the road, and took me to the café I had effectively come to a stop in front of. They stayed with me for what felt like hours, but was probably only 15 minutes.

At that point I knew a few things:

• my helmet was cracked in several places
• I had hurt my ribs
• I had grazes on my knee, left torso, head and arms
• I was functioning, but not clearly

That last point matters.

A lot of bad post-crash decisions happen when you are still upright, still talking, and therefore assume you are fine enough to sort it out later.

What I did next

I collected myself and somehow got back to the hotel. To this day I am not quite sure how.

Once there, I showered and started trying to work out what to do next.

I tried to see a doctor, but Bellagio did not have one available. I also spoke to my travel insurance company. Their advice was essentially to see how I was in a day or so, with the reminder that if I sought treatment I would likely need to incur the cost first and recover it later.

That is one of those moments where admin logic can quietly shape a health decision if you let it.

I also did not take the bike straight to a bike shop.

That was another mistake. At the time, I was operating on a rough visual assessment: it looked mostly okay, so I treated it as mostly okay.

It was not.

What I missed in the first 24 hours

There were two things I should have treated as non-negotiable on day one.

1. I should have seen a doctor immediately

I eventually saw a doctor five days later, and was told that everything looked okay.

Then, on the second last day of the trip, around 20 days after the crash, an osteo told me I still had bruised ribs and that one rib was slightly displaced. They put it back in, which was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

The lesson is not that every crash becomes something serious.

It is that if you have hit your head hard enough to crack a helmet in several places, hurt your ribs, and covered yourself in grazes, you should get checked properly as early as you can. Not when it becomes convenient. Not when you feel clearer the next day. On day one.

If the town you are in cannot do that, go to another town.

2. I should have had the bike checked immediately

I did not really examine the bike properly at the time.

I actually rode for about a week before I realised something was wrong.

Then I discovered that the axle in the rear wheel had cracked.

Again, the practical point is not that hidden bike damage is unusual. It is that post-crash bike assessment is easy to get wrong when you are sore, rattled, and mainly relieved the frame is still in one piece.

A bike can be rideable enough to get you back to the hotel and even through several more rides, and still not be safe.

That means after a significant crash, “it seems okay” is not a proper check. The bike should have gone straight to a bike shop.

The real problem after a crash

The hard part is not only the impact.

It is the combination of:

• being physically rattled
• wanting the trip to continue
• not wanting to make a fuss in a foreign place
• limited local medical availability
• uncertainty about what the insurance process actually means in practice
• the temptation to make a quick judgement and move on

That is where planning matters.

Most riders think of trip planning as routes, hotels, flights, and transfers. Those things matter. But the more useful test is this: if something goes wrong, do you know what your first few decisions are?

In my case, I did not handle that part well enough.

What I would now do on day one

If I had the same crash again, I would treat these steps as immediate, not optional.

1. Get medically assessed that day

If the local town cannot do it, go somewhere that can.

The inconvenience is irrelevant compared with guessing wrong on a head impact, rib injury, or something less obvious that only becomes clear later.

2. Assume the bike needs a proper inspection

Not a glance in the hotel room. A proper look by someone who knows what crash damage can hide.

At minimum I would want the wheel, axle, frame, bars, levers and contact points checked before riding again.

3. Replace critical safety gear immediately

A cracked helmet is finished. No discussion.

If your glasses, shoes, or anything else critical to safe riding were damaged, deal with that before the next ride rather than trying to salvage the plan.

4. Make decisions while assuming you are not thinking at your best

That is probably the biggest lesson.

After a crash, your judgement is not at its best, even if you feel capable of sorting things out. That means simplifying the next decisions helps:

• doctor first
• bike check second
• trip adjustments after that

Not the other way around.

5. Build local support into the trip before you need it

This is one of the planning habits I value more now than I did earlier.

Before a trip, I want to know:

• where the local bike shop or mechanic is
• what nearby medical options exist
• what town I would go to if the immediate location cannot help

I am much more deliberate about that now. When I go through towns, I notice where I could get medical help and which bike shops or mechanics are nearby.

That sounds like overkill until something goes wrong.

Then it becomes the difference between acting quickly and sitting in a hotel room trying to work it out while sore and second-guessing yourself.

What this changed in how I plan trips

This experience did not make me more dramatic about risk. It made me more practical about response.

I still think about cycling trips in the same broad way: riding goals, trip shape, transfers, accommodation, and how much friction a location adds.

What changed is that I now put more weight on support and fallback options.

That means:

• knowing where to get the bike checked
• knowing where to hire or source parts if needed
• understanding whether the place I am staying is convenient only when things go well, or also workable when they do not
• being willing to change towns, incur a cost, or lose a riding day if that is what the situation requires

That last point matters.

Losing one riding day is annoying. Riding for days on an unchecked bike, or sitting on an untreated injury because proper help feels inconvenient, is worse.

The practical lesson

The simplest version is this:

After a meaningful crash, do not make the mistake of grading yourself and the bike on appearances alone.

I did that.

I thought I was mostly okay. I thought the bike was mostly okay. Both judgements were too casual for what had happened.

So if you are travelling for a cycling trip, I would now treat these as non-negotiable:

• know where you would get medical help before the trip starts
• know where you would get the bike inspected before the trip starts
• carry the essentials you would need if the bike or luggage plan breaks
• assume that post-crash judgement is imperfect
• handle the medical check and bike check first, then decide what happens to the rest of the trip

That is the part of trip planning most riders do not think about when everything is going well.

They should.

Because when something does go wrong, the trip does not just test your fitness or handling.

It tests whether you have a sensible response when the original plan stops mattering.