Well, I hit the deck today at a race, completely my fault, just took a sharp hairpin a bit to fast (~25mph), clipped the side of my shoe and pedal and out the bike went. Took a hard hit on my left side, but was able to get back on the bike, fixing the shifter that was pushed sideways as I rode and keep right on going for the duration of the race (30min). I still managed a 15th place finish out of 47 people, even despite the fact that my bars were completely sideways and the bike only wanted to go straight in the corners.
On to the fun stuff, once I got home I had to clean all of the major road rash on my shoulder, forearm, and calf. I will just say it sucked and leave it at that, but one thing I noticed was my calf was 100 times easier to manage and bled significantly less than my forearm, which had basically the same wound. The only thing I can contribute this to is the fact that my legs have no hair and my arms do. It was like every hair was torn from my arm causing much more bleeding (you could actually see all of the little spots of blood where the hairs were), and the hairs grabbed every piece of dirt and ground it into the wound. I am sold on shaving......
On to the fun stuff, once I got home I had to clean all of the major road rash on my shoulder, forearm, and calf. I will just say it sucked and leave it at that, but one thing I noticed was my calf was 100 times easier to manage and bled significantly less than my forearm, which had basically the same wound. The only thing I can contribute this to is the fact that my legs have no hair and my arms do. It was like every hair was torn from my arm causing much more bleeding (you could actually see all of the little spots of blood where the hairs were), and the hairs grabbed every piece of dirt and ground it into the wound. I am sold on shaving......