Mark August 3:

15 weeks and 4 days since the accident, 15 weeks and 1 day since surgery.

August 3 is the day I got back out on the road on my bicycle.

It was nothing, and, it was everything. I was lamenting spinning aimlessly after 10 minutes on my indoor trainer in the garage (for the third time this week) and wondered if I was ready to ride for real. My physio had suggested I could, but I had balked, for fear of falling.

I felt like giving it a try. Just a quick trip around the block – approximately one kilometre – no hills, no traffic, just a couple of speed humps and four right hand turns. It was slow, careful and wonderful.

I choked up a little while later while hugging my 9 year old, as I told her why this was such a big deal to me. I recounted one of my first and clearest thoughts as I laid on the ground, painfully clutching my knee (my face brushing the grass, the ambulance on its way): whether I would ever ride my bike again. That contemplation and memory is vivid and visceral.

Cycling is very important to me. Since 2012, it has given me tremendous physical, cardiovascular and mental fitness. It has given me space and time to breathe, to challenge myself and to set and achieve goals I never imagined I was capable of. It has helped me find equilibrium while becoming and enduring being a new father.

All of that was suddenly up in the air on April 16, when I came off the ladder wrong. A part of me is still weirdly somewhat grateful for the experience, since it’s allowed me to recalibrate my life and re-evaluate what’s important to me. But the trip around the block was elating, satisfying and confirming. Cycling remains a part of me. Thus, the trip around the block was an utterly important and very personal moment in my recovery.