In 2008 I was riding my go-fast bike in a paceline at a speed that was
really above my ability level. If I had to hazard a guess we were
probably averaging around 23-24 in a tightly packed paceline on flat
ground with a tailwind. It started misting about 20 miles in and as
we got into a corner I bounced off of someone's back wheel and went
down hard doing about 20ish. Several of the people behind me ran me
over and one lady did an endo over my torso.
I was doing a 200K that day and had approximately 105 miles to go
still, so I got up and finished the ride, but it wasn't that pleasant.
I was using my Garmin with heart rate and when I looked at the data
after the ride, my average heart rate was about 20bpm higher than
normal for a brevet, so my body definitely knew something was amiss.
The next day I could barely move and I eventually developed a hematoma
the size of a flat watermelon if you outlined the shape of one, on my
outer thigh and buttocks. I had to work from home for the next week
because I was just in agony and it took me a couple of weeks before
things were getting back to normal.
I looked back on my 2008 RUSA results and the accident happened on the
1/05/08 ride and I rode a 200K again on 1/26, probably on my Riv
rather than my go-fast, although i don't exactly remember. I don't
think I rode the go-fast again on a brevet for a long time afterwards.
IIRC I considered a 200K on 1/19, but decided against it mainly due to
still being sore and temps forecasted to be barely above freezing.
So I would say based on my personal experience, if you are are
relatively young and in reasonably good shape you're looking at a 2-3
week recovery for any sort of serious riding. I probably puttered
around before the 1/26/08 brevet some, but don't exactly remember what
I might have ridden. I was looking for my old Garmin recorded rides
but
motionbased.garmin.com no longer resolves.
I guess it just depends on what you're doing. My doctor knows I do
some crazy distance riding so he would just say "as tolerated" as long
as my vitals and such were ok.
Keep the metal side up and the rubber side down!