THE CRASH.
In 2023, I have been involved in a very bad car-vs-bike accident, which had a big impact on my life.
Here’s the story.
This is the Salsa Warbird, my first carbon bike that I was planing to travel with as my bikepacking bike. At some point I bought a second wheelset so I could use it with thinner tires, as a road bike. It was perfect.
But, less than 8 months after finishing building it
IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE, BOOM!
Gone, almost just like me.• What & how:
As I was returning home from a weekly group ride around Paris, BOOM! I was like unplugged from life.
According to the police, I crossed an intersection without checking for oncoming traffic, when I should have stopped to let a car go by. I was apparently the one at fault. But since I don’t remember any of it at all. All I can say is “okay”, shrug my shoulders and deal with it.
I don’t know what really happened, I don’t know if I felt pain or not, I don’t know how things went after the crash. I don’t know if I lost consciousness on impact, of several minutes later.
I got a few broken bones, a severe brain injury with internal bleeding despite my helmet, and I remained in a coma for over three weeks.
But, after three weeks, I eventually woke up. It felt to me like I had just taken a 30-minute nap, but in reality, it had been a three-week nap… It felt like it was the very first time ever that I opened my eyes. I came back to life, like a second birth.
The medical staff told me that thay couldn’t tell if I would ever wake up again, and that without a helmet, I would have died on impact.
My mom told me in 2026 that at a time when things were looking pretty bad, she talked to the medical team about organ donation…
For a few months, I couldn’t walk anymore, or even simply stand up on my own. You know it’s bad when taking a shower consists in getting washed by someone else…
• UPDATE - June 2025, a year and a half later.
I attended a rehab hospital several times a week for over a year. I learned how to walk again, and even how to ride a (real) bike again! My first bike ride after the accident had to be on a stationary rehab bike – something I never thought I would say one day.
Today, I still have a few after-effects from that: I have very annoying speech difficulties (for neurological reasons), and my right eye is no longer aligned with the other one, which is forcing me to mask it to avoid double vision.
But that's okay; at least I'm not in a wheelchair, or lying down in a wooden box.
︎ FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ME, MY CYCLING PHOTOS, THE ACCIDENT AND WHY I’VE MADE A BOOK, AS A DIRECT RESPONSE TO IT︎
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