Team Sky’s rider, Luke Rowe, has revealed what his surgeon told him about never walking again in case of another serious crash.
After breaking his leg in August, Rowe is now back on a track bike trying to fully recover from the serious injury he took earlier this year breaking his right leg’s fibula and tibia in more than 20 pieces. It seems that now, all it takes is one serious crash to make him at least never rider – or even walk, again.
“I have a metal rod in there,” Rowe said during an interview for The Telegraph. “We’ve had a few discussions about whether to leave it in or take it out. And we’ve decided that we’re going to leave it in to strengthen the tibia.
“But if I was to crash and if it was a big one, well, you can imagine… the rod bends, the bone doesn’t. So it would shatter and I would never ride a bike again. Potentially never walk again. I would never have full use of my leg.”
No regrets
Even though the crash has put his career and life in a serious danger, Rowe admits to have no regrets on everything that has happened so far and plans to do exactly the same type of riding once he returns to racing in April’s Commonwealth Games which will take place in Australia, in 2018.
“I’ve just got to crack on and if I crash, you know, it would be a horror story and I’d go and stack some shelves. No regrets,” he added. “You can’t wrap yourself up in cotton wool. It was just super unlucky.”
“The surgeon said ‘There’s a good chance you will never ride a bike again’. That was probably the worst moment of my life,” Rowe, 27, added.
