A member of the Penn Cycling club is recovering after being seriously injured during a cycling race earlier this month.
On the third day of the Tour of the Catskills in New York state, Rising College junior Colby Samstag — an amateur cyclist with professional ambitions — collided with a vehicle that had wandered onto the course.
He suffered severe injuries to his head, arm and hand, fracturing small bones in his elbow, ear and potentially his jaw and finger as well. He received stitches along his jaw, neck, arm, hip and fingers.
“I’m able to walk, but I’m having pretty severe neck pain,” he said several days after the crash, upon being released from the Albany Medical Center. “I’m doing better every day.”
Samstag added he does not remember the crash, which occurred just nine miles into the 59-mile course, but that he had pieced together what happened from others’ accounts.
He had been leading the pack of cyclists, going downhill at almost 50 miles per hour, when he approached the vehicle. When the driver — confused after having pulled onto a race course — stopped his car suddenly, Samstag was unable to react in time to avoid collision.
“People have said that I slammed on my brakes, but I just couldn’t stop in time,” Samstag said. “I hit the windshield.”
The driver, a man in his 70s heading to church with his wife, is not being charged in the accident, according to Cyclists International.
Samstag plans to return to campus by the start of the school year.
“Penn has been very helpful,” he said. “The head of student health has contacted me. They’ll help with everything — every kind of doctor.”
But the recovery process will be long and may hinder Samstag’s professional aspirations.
“I had dreams of being a pro cyclist some day, but I don’t know if it’ll happen,” he said. “I was trying to be in an elite level of cycling. [The accident is] definitely going to put a damper on things for a while.”
Samstag, a Pittsburgh native, had devoted his summer to training, riding five or six days a week.
At school, Samstag serves as vice president of Penn Cycling, a club for undergraduate and graduate students interested in the sport.
“They’ve been immensely supportive,” he said of the members of Penn Cycling. “They’ve checked on me, called me, messaged me. The cycling community around Pittsburgh has been the same way.”
“Every member of Penn cycling who has ridden alongside Colby is his friend, we were all truly saddened at the news,” engineering PhD candidate and Penn Cycling member Jason Ruth wrote in an email after the accident. “Colby is a great cyclist and enthusiastic competitor.”
