Media Whore

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/van-bon-continues-with-marco-polo

Bring on the new year!

2009

Well I am about to go out of 2009 the same way I came in; injured. Despite all the time stuck inside going a wee bit insane I know I'll enter 2010 a lot stronger. Now don't worry, I'm not about to get all inspirational and start blaring chariots of fire,

What keeps me excited for next year is summed up in this press release,

Yep, next year I'll get to trapse the globe with a new bike, new mates and a new outlook chasing new adventures and hopefully having a whole heap of fun.

The hardest thing about it is that I am still a couple of weeks away from riding and possibly another month from really riding hard. So I need to hold back even though I am ready to grab a bmx and ride to Baw Baw and back, seriously I am getting restless.

Bye for now, hope everyone ate themselves into a coma on Christmas day and I'll see you all in the new year for some training and a bunch of failed resolutions!

Last minute Edit!
Here's a nice write up on our team bikes for next season, the Museeuw MF 1

Procrastinatory Posting

Not much juicy information or gruesome photos to add yet, sorry!

Just been very busy cramming in a semester of work into two weeks of study.

I have two exams in the next 5 days so I have not had much time to keep the blog rolling.

Bottom line thus far,
Time since crash: 4 weeks
Time spent in cast: 2 weeks
Time in moon boot: 2 weeks
Time left in moon boot: 2 weeks
Time till I ride again: Don't ask (3+ weeks)
Number of fantastic Thai meals: 2
Number of visits to Dumpling King: 1 (not nearly enough)
Number of  APTE Mega Cookies eaten: 1 (a whole blog post to come on these little beauties)
Number of sympathetic relatives who have baked me some tasty goods: 2
Hows the fractured pelvis: Good nearly 100%
Hows the face: Great! I'll get some photo's loaded after my exams
Where to from here: Get in the gym, do some easy stuff; pretty much anything to keep me occupied and start some SLAM pedalling soon (more to come on that!)

So I am bored, frustrated, but no time to fret, I have some exams to pass!

Ciao

Jono

Self Indulgence

Just popping up a link to an interview I did with Hawthorn "Master of the Universe"  Stu Vaughan

a while back about all sorts of random facts. Not heaps to it other than a good long video of me, talking all about, well...me. But I guess that's why people blog isn't it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWXnPSpVkA8


And according to Scott I am a young man full of courage. I am not going to lie that is pretty humbling, but I'd prefer to be a coward who never crashed!
http://www.ozcycling.com/newsarticle/index.html?article=336&page=1

Back to some thrilling econometrics work for the time being

A Post About Nothing

Sorry, no decent content here.

Have I spent a lot of time on the computer lately? ahhhh yup.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMshvUReunc


Ciao

The Epilogue

Touch Down.

In Melbourne, hello shocked parents, hello coffee machine, hello internet.

Hello sanity, normality and recovery. But no time to rest now, half clean wounds, fresh fractures and a gooey gashed faced all lead my parents and I to say hello again to hospital.

Hello Epworth. Helloooooooo nurse! Did I mention the nurse was a chubby hairy ocker bloke named Bill? Well scoff all you want, but he knew how to sponge bath juuuuust right.

So another 3 days were taken from my busy schedule of do nothing so that I could now do nothing while getting loaded with vain stingingly vicious intra-venous antibiotics and have my armada of helpers ferry my coffees from Hudsons on the ground floor.

Life was good. Friends, family, internet fame and some wicked scars.

Stitches came out from the face (all 57 of them!?&$%%##$) and the leg, bruising came down and I even began to hobble around (on my left leg with the fractured pelvis!) with a walking frame.

Once I got home the ordeal was definitely over and it really was time to recover and start organising next year.

In a minor milestone I had my first shower in just under two weeks yesterday, it was unbelievable. I don't want to get too emotional and reflective but is good for life to bowl you a beam ball every now, just to help you appreciated all the things you took for granted.

So that's that, everything is healing nicely and for the first time since I went to France 4 years ago I've gone two whole weeks without riding a bike.

There is a wave of my 'crash photo porn' sweeping the web on all sorts of blogs and sites. So to Fyxo, TFM/Celtic, Goldie's Blog, various facebook and twitter accounts, various email groups and forums and anyone I've missed, thanks for having a read, my 15 minutes of fame has been fun fun fun, but now I really, really have to start studying for my exams! aaahhhhh dam.

Ciao, for now....

Rats Under the Bed, Red Tape Overhead

The first part of my brief stay in the Hospital is sunny Sanya was no problem. It was all shits and giggles. The team were visiting me, team Directeur Sportif Patrick Jonker had a constant supply of McDonalds coming, team physio Scott even spent the first night keeping me company and dosing me with painkillers and Dicko (aka Will Dickenson) had loaned me his laptop so I had about 4 days of music to keep me sane in this most insane of situations.

But like any bizarre moment suspended from all time and reality and no matter how far from any semblance of normal life you appear to be; whoever it is in charge upstairs in life slaps you across the face with a big reality check and says

“Hey ****head, you’re in a foreign country with lots of injuries, possibly some brewing infections given you are covered in dirty scabs and scars, you are in no state to fly but the rest of your mates are leaving for the wonderful land of Oz tomorrow, if you don’t get on that flight you are so far up shit creek you can probably see Werribee”

Oh, yeh. Bugger. I crashed on Wednesday, it was now midday Thursday and my flight left at 5 pm Friday. I could not bear any weight on my legs, I could just sit myself upright in bed. I needed painkillers and a miracle.

I received a visit from the Chinese representative of the broker for the Cycling Australia travel/health/crash insurance. His plan: stay in Sanya for 3 more days, then fly to Hong Kong then stay till you are good to go back to Melbourne. That sounded plausible, except what would I do with my 2 bags and bike box? Good luck lugging those around in a wheelchair!

So after a quick consultation with my dad over the phone we decided (or maybe I stated it in a blunt manner with the addition of a few choice adjectives) we had to do everything possible to get me on the team flight. My dad had already spoken to the Australian representative for the insurance company and the plans were coming together. The major red tape barriers we struck were

1) The Doctor had to give me clearance to leave; he planned on visiting me on Friday morning which according to the hospitals regular procedure would not allow me to get on a flight the same afternoon. No reason why, just the way things were done.
That’s not good.

2) The hospital would only clear me to leave once they had been paid, in cash. For the insurance to get the money into my account and for me to get someone to withdraw it would take days.
Now that’s really not good

3) For clearance to be given I needed to upgrade my flight to business class which was mighty costly. The airline would also only accept cash. The insurance company would pay, but they could not get my money to freedom quick enough.
OK I’m screwed.

4) I needed the doctor to find me some anti-DVT injections to prevent blood clots while I was on the flight.
I’m not going anywhere am I?

5) Even if all of the above was negotiated the airline still reserved the right to not let me on the plane if they deemed me unfit to fly.
Yep I’m officially rooted.

I was amazingly, incredibly and fantastically fortunate to have my Dad in Australia hassling the insurance company non stop, and Savings and Loans team representatives Steve and Michelle Cunningham in Sanya hassling the hospital, airline and the insurance company. I guess if you make enough noise, hassle enough people, and do it with just the right amount of politeness, you can get stuff done, real quick, and in my case, against all odds.

We bypassed a minor bureaucratic hurdle when the insurance rep in Australia explained to my dad that the Chinese representative who came to visit me initially wanted me to go to Hong Kong because then they would use a certain medi-vac company who he would get extra remuneration from. So it wasn’t so much what he thought was best for me, more so what would net him the best Christmas bonus. I happily nodded but politely declined to follow his course of actions when he visited me on Friday morning.

Come Friday midday the stars had aligned, I was heading home. Steve and Michelle had got their mitts on the $7000 US cash prize pool that had been paid out to Savings and Loans and where throwing money every which way to get me home!

Business class upgrade? Tick
Hospital bill? Tick
DVT Shots? Tick
McDonald’s large chicken fillet burger meal? Big Tick

The two barriers remaining were finding an ambulance to transport me to the airport and once there convincing the airport I was OK to fly. The Australian insurance rep came to the for and made sure that there was an ambulance to get me to the airport, step one done. Then, thanks to some wheeling and dealing, the Chinese doctor who we were consulting allowed us to write up a letter of travel recommendation reading along the lines of:

“According to my medical expertise Jonathan is in a fit state to travel etc” and translated it across to Chinese as best he could for us to present to the airline.

So that was it, add in a good 30 minutes arguing with Chinese airport workers and I was in the clear.

For the following 20 hours I was wheeled, carried, lifted, and flown from good ol Sanya on the Island of Hainan back to Guangzhou in mainland China and onwards to Melbourne Australia.

Home sweet –English speaking, slightly less bureaucratic and slightly more medically competent- home.