In January 2021, during yet another COVID wave, my workload at the company was light — but only on paper. I was in charge of all technical operations for a large final project, and while requests came in bursts, the pressure never really stopped. It was like being on duty for two years without a break. I still remember telling the CEO — someone I deeply respected — “Yesterday I only worked 30 minutes. Are you sure it’s worth keeping me?” He smiled and replied, “If you were busy for half an hour, it means we needed you.” His calm certainty stuck with me. It was Danish in the best sense of the word: grounded, modest, practical.

That week, I needed to check on one of our datacentres before a third-party visit. On paper, everything looked fine — automated systems were in place, alerts were quiet. But I was known as the person who always spotted the anomalies others missed. Small things that didn’t trigger alarms — but if left undetected, could grow into failures that halt production entirely. I carried a mental map of how everything should look, sound, and behave — even when undocumented. It wasn’t guesswork. It was pattern detection. I couldn’t not notice when something felt off. So I did what I always did: I scheduled a manual check. And, as always, I merged it with a bike ride. Functional + enjoyable = classic me.

But I never made it.

I took the scenic route that goes on some forest trails. Another cyclist overtook me was slightly ahead of me, and instead of watching the path, I was focusing on the distance between us. My eyes weren’t where they should have been. My brain had tunnelled in. The trail slightly forked around some roots. I knew they were there — but I didn’t adjust in time. My bike hit them, tilted violently, and I crashed. I landed hard. When I stood up, the other cyclist was already gone. I was alone.

What’s strange is I didn’t feel pain. Not at all. Only when I touched my collarbone I realised it was broken. I also assumed the lack of pain was due to adrenaline — and that likely played a role. But afterward, I realised it went deeper than that. I discovered small bruises later — things I hadn’t even noticed.

I also remembered that I had planned a bike ride with my girlfriend the next day in the Ardennes. I sent her a message right away to apologise. That felt more urgent than the bone and the rest of the situation.

A few minutes later, two women appeared on the trail. I was standing quietly beside my bike. One of them asked, “Are you okay?” And for the first time in my life, when someone asked me that, my answer was no.

One of the women told me her family ran an equestrian centre nearby. Somehow — a small miracle in that valley — she managed to get a mobile signal and called her husband. A few minutes later, he arrived with a narrow vineyard-style tractor, carefully picked me up along with my bike, and brought us to their property. From there, they called the emergency services and kept my bike safe until a friend could come collect it.

Looking back, I realise how lucky I was that they crossed my path. Without them, I would have remained alone on the trail with a broken collarbone. I was near a road, but separated from it by a cliff — not easily reachable. It would have likely been dark by the time rescuers found me. And I still don’t know what would have happened to my bike. They didn’t just help me logistically. They kindly made a difficult situation safe.

At the hospital, the staff were calm and focused — a small miracle during COVID. The doctor asked if I’d heard the bone break. “When it happened to me,” he said, “I heard it clearly.” I hadn’t heard anything, but I didn’t feel alone. They decided on surgery to stabilise the bone. I’d never had surgery before. The idea terrified me. But in that moment, the fear disappeared. It didn’t feel brave. It felt… clean. Like the fear got deleted because it no longer served a purpose.

The next morning, I was fixed but vulnerable and took the tram home — alone. My housemate was stuck abroad due to flight issues. I was on my own, but not overwhelmed. Just… compartmentalised.

What lingered wasn’t pain or panic — it was the what-if. I kept replaying how close it had been to something catastrophic. My face had landed near some stones. If I’d hit it at that angle, the outcome could have been drastically different. I was injured, alone, in a forest, just before nightfall — far from easy rescue. But the injury itself felt secondary. All I could think about was the near-miss. The close call. The thin margin between this and something unrecoverable. I now understand that this wasn’t denial or shock — it was how my brain processes trauma: through spatial logic, not emotional collapse. The focus shift, the absence of pain, the emotional cutoff — it wasn’t that I wasn’t reacting. It was that I was rerouting.

Two weeks later, I was on a home trainer. I didn’t apply pressure to the handlebars with my right hand, but I pedalled. With my girlfriend, we substituted hikes for bike rides. I didn’t fail my January century ride — at least technically — because I completed it on the trainer while watching videos, balancing with one arm.

After the crash, the comment I heard most — aside from the kind “get well soon” messages — was: “I can’t believe that happened to you. You’re the most careful person I know.” And they were right — I am.  On Strava alone, I received over 50 comments full of kindness. That warmed my heart. It reminded me that even though I crashed alone, I wasn’t alone in how people saw me.

But what I only realised later is that my “carefulness” wasn’t just a personality trait. It was a system. I had been devoting conscious effort to things most people do automatically — balance, reaction, perception — my whole life. But somehow, I wasn’t aware that I was doing it. Or rather, I was doing it consciously without consciously naming it. Only after discovering my autism and dyspraxia did that layer of awareness finally click into place.

I always thought I’d crash one day because of a daydream. But it wasn’t a dream. It was focus — misapplied, tunnelled in, disconnected from context. That’s when I realised: the crash didn’t happen despite my carefulness. It happened because, for once, my compensations weren’t enough.

I got injured doing something I love, in a place I love. It could have been so much worse. And that truth stays with me more than the scar.

Notes From the Future: What I Now Understand

At the time of the crash, I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what was happening beneath the surface. But now — years later, with a neurodivergent lens — I can identify several traits and patterns that were active throughout the entire experience:

🔍 Monotropism / Autistic Attention Narrowing

I was hyper-focused on the spacing between myself and another cyclist. This tunnel of attention made me lose sight of the bigger picture — the trail, the roots, the environmental risk. My brain locked onto one variable and tuned out the rest, even though I knew the terrain well.

I used to think I was being careful by focusing so much on the space between me and other cyclists ahead — especially in case they stopped suddenly. It felt like responsible cycling. And in a way, it was. But now I understand it was also a tunnel. My hyper-focus gave me control in one direction, but it blocked out everything else — including the ground under my wheels. It wasn’t negligence. It was monotropism. I was safe in the narrow window I could see — but blind to what my brain hadn’t let in.

🧭 Dyspraxia

My awareness of the roots wasn’t enough to correct for motor planning on uneven ground. In dynamic environments, especially with visual input split or delayed, my coordination can fall just below threshold — even with extreme caution. That’s what happened here.

What is dyspraxia?
A neurological difference that affects motor planning, balance, and coordination — often in subtle ways that demand constant conscious adjustment. (Read my story that covers the subject.)

🔕 Interoception & Pain Processing Differences

Despite a clearly broken collarbone, I felt no pain at the time. I only realised something was wrong when I touched the area. This delay in noticing internal physical states has happened before — but this time, it had consequences.

🔄 Cognitive Override / Alexithymia

Instead of fear or panic, I processed the situation logically and procedurally. Even my longstanding fear of surgery disappeared instantly — not from courage, but because my brain removed the emotion that no longer served the plan. That’s not calmness — that’s rerouting.

😐 Muted Expression, Honest Answer

When the woman asked, “Are you okay?”, I said no — and for once, it was true. What I didn’t say is that, for most of my life, the honest answer has often been no, or I don’t know, even when I smiled and said yes. Emotional overwhelm. Burnout. Shutdown. I’ve masked those moments with calmness, or silence, or socially appropriate composure. I’ve even been praised for being steady — when inside, I was burning.

But that day, I couldn’t hide. I wasn’t just physically injured. I was unmasked. There was no way to fake regulation or override my body. And strangely, that made it one of the clearest, most truthful moments I’ve ever had in front of another person.

It may have looked like flatness on the outside — but inside, it was the closest I’ve come to emotional congruence. Not dramatic. Just real.

🌀 Looped Risk Analysis

After the crash, my brain didn’t dwell on the injury. It replayed the near miss. Over and over. My internal system prioritised what could have happened more than what did — a form of abstract trauma rehearsal common in pattern-oriented neurotypes.

And years later, I still replay that moment. It’s not about regret or trauma flashbacks — it’s about pattern completion. My brain continues to process the scene because the outcome felt unresolved. The crash didn’t match the level of danger. So the loop remains open, like an unsaved file. I’m not obsessed with it. The memory doesn’t haunt me — but it still quietly revisits me from time to time.

🔧 Autistic and ADHD-Informed Adaptation

Instead of breaking down or giving up, I rebuilt my goals within my new limits. I switched to a home trainer, rode without pressure on the injured side, and completed my monthly ride target by redefining the system — a form of executive resilience often misread as “doing fine.”

🧩 Hyperpattern Recognition and Live System Mapping

Even before I knew I was neurodivergent, I had what others saw as intuition — but what I now recognise as a deep, involuntary system-mapping process. I didn’t “just know” when something was wrong in a datacentre. I carried a mental model of how every light, fan, server, and switch should behave — including what should be off, what must stay redundant, and what could fail silently. I didn’t need documentation. I had the pattern in my head. This wasn’t a party trick. It was my cognitive architecture. And it made me the person who always found the problem before it became visible.

Lessons Learned

At first, I thought the crash was just bad luck — something that didn’t fit into any of my neurodivergent patterns. But with time, and the right lens, I realised I’d been looking at it from the wrong angle. Like investigators decoding a black box after a plane incident, the lessons didn’t emerge from the impact — they came from analysing the systems that failed quietly around it.

Deep and Focused Attention

I used to think that if I ever crashed, it would be because I wasn’t paying attention. But now I understand it’s not about lack of attention — it’s about how my attention works. It’s not wide. It’s deep. Focused. Monotropic. That day, it was focused on the spacing between two bikes. Another day, it could have been on my phone — reading a message at just the wrong time.

I recently changed how I interact with my phone while cycling. I now only take it out when I’ve stopped or am riding very slowly, with extended visibility and no one around — and only for a specific, time-bound purpose like checking a short message or taking a quick photo. If I receive a longer message, or one that requires more than a quick glance (even if the environment felt safe when I first looked), I stop to read it.

Before, I followed a vague rule of “be careful.” Now, I understand why my attention narrows — and that even a short glance can cascade into unawareness of my surroundings. I’ve adapted in ways that respect how my brain naturally operates, not how others assume attention works.

Sometimes it’s awkward. If someone sends a message and expects a quick reply, I know that answering might trigger another message — which becomes a conversation. But here’s the challenge: if I don’t reply right away, I risk forgetting the message entirely until something reminds me later. That’s working memory. So what do I do? I stop. Sometimes 15 times in a 2 km stretch. Not because I’m distracted — but because I’ve learned that trying to multitask through it can cost more than time. It’s a small price to pay. And frankly, it’s better than another visit to the hospital.

This applies to other things too, such as snacking, drinking. I could do these things with so much ease that I thought they were instinctive, but I detected patterns showing that I reduce my attention around me. I decided to only eat or drink when I consider my environment “safe enough”.

Coordination and Spacial Maintenance

I also realised something else: I don’t feel safe holding my phone while riding. It’s not just about distraction. It’s about dexterity. When I pull the phone out of my pocket and try to handle it with one hand, I feel like I could drop it at any moment. That subtle instability — that “this could go wrong” feeling — is something I’ve lived with for years.

Even riding with one hand on the handlebar is difficult. I can do it, but I need a few seconds to adjust — and only if the surface is stable, the slope is flat or uphill, and I have full visual control of my environment. It’s not just discomfort. It’s a coordination threshold. And once I finally understood it was dyspraxia, not clumsiness, I stopped treating those instincts as overreactions. Now I stop. I take the time. And I call that safety.

So if I accumulate focusing on holding the phone, plus holding the handlebar with one hand, manipulating the phone, and focusing for overriding my clumsiness while managing my motion, it’s just too dangerous for my monotropic brain.

But I’ve found a way to train my coordination deliberately while cycling. I sometimes ride with one hand on the handlebar while using my other hand to take a photo or video with a GoPro that hangs around my neck on a cord. Not a random photo but something that looks good in the frame. It’s not always easy, but because the GoPro is secured, I can drop it the second something feels unstable. My other hand goes right back to the bars. The point isn’t to look skilled. It’s to stay responsive. And I’ve realised this is what my body needs: practice with safety margins. It’s how I stretch my limits without pretending I don’t have any.

Another recurring challenge is swing gates or narrow barriers — the kind installed to slow cyclists down in high-risk areas. Ironically, they often do the opposite for me. Navigating through them demands so much visual-spatial focus that I have to tune out my surroundings completely. My attention narrows to pedal position, lateral spacing, and forward angle. And during that short window, I become unaware of anything else: traffic, sound, even people around me.

It’s a strange feeling — to be both intensely focused and temporarily blind to context. And it’s something most people don’t see, because from the outside, I just look like someone taking care through a tight gap. But inside, I’ve lost access to my environment — and I only get it back once I’m through.

The Cycling Miracle

And looking back, I now realise how close I came to never being able to ride a bike at all. If I hadn’t started as a child — before motor planning became such a barrier — I’m not sure I would’ve ever picked it up. It might have ended up on my “not for me” list, somewhere between archery and driving.

Since I understood that, I feel an enormous sense of gratitude every time I ride. What once felt natural now feels precious — not because it’s easy, but because I know how easily it might not have been possible. And with that comes a deep admiration for those who struggle with cycling but still go out on their wheels — whether due to motor challenges, balance, or fear.

I often wish I could go up to them and say: “You’re doing something amazing. I know how hard this can be.” But that would require me to take the first step in a social interaction — and that’s another kind of barrier I rarely cross. I can respond. I can encourage. But initiating is still something I find incredibly hard. That’s part of my autism. I used to think it was just shyness — something I could “get over” with time. And occasionally, I do push through the stress and speak up. But the feeling doesn’t go away. It doesn’t get easier next time. Every attempt feels like starting from zero. And most of the time, I simply can’t.

To make it harder, I’m often afraid I’ll say something inappropriate by accident, or cross a boundary I didn’t mean to. I also know from experience that when I’m stressed or under pressure, I make those kind of mistakes more easily. So instead, I wave. I smile. My voice can usually manage just a simple “Hello,” “Moien,” “Bonjour,” or “Hallo” — and sometimes I even use the wrong language.

But I’m there, on two wheels. Watching others do what I once thought I might never manage myself. And that alone fills me with quiet awe.

Maybe, in the silent way we each do hard things, they’ll feel my respect.

And maybe, in that shared moment — unspoken but real — the cycling miracle continues.

(A follow-up reflection on social interaction and initiation may be shared soon.)

🧭 If you’re a cyclist with dyspraxia — diagnosed or suspected — and parts of this story resonate with you, I’d love to know.

It’s not always easy to find others who understand what it means to manage balance, coordination, attention, and sensory overload on two wheels. And even if it’s just a quiet “same here,” that would already mean a lot.