As a child, I seemed to find a sort of sanctuary atop the knobby tires of my BMX bike, and for the majority of my misspent youth, I built rickety ramps from scrap wood and cinderblocks to try to hurl myself heavenward. I graduated to dirt jumps and began racing in 1982. I wore my scabs like badges of honor. No one, certainly not my parents, would have ever guessed this two-wheeled passion would last more than three decades.
Over the course of the more than thirty years since that first BMX bike, I dropped in and out of racing, but always found my way back to my bike. In my late 20s, I traveled extensively and raced in perhaps more than half of the states in the US. It took a long time and a ton of training, but I managed to land in the top 10 in Expert in the US in my age-group.
I was blessed with a big solid body, and although I took many pretty hard tumbles, I managed to mostly stay away from the doctor’s office.
That all changed in 2011, when I crashed over a set of doubles at trails in West Harrison, Indiana. I didn’t hit all that hard. In fact, I’d hit a lot harder in the past, but I had hit at just the wrong angle, and I blew the ACL off at my femur.
One of my friends works at Beacon and highly recommended them. He lined up an appointment for me with Beacon’s Dr. McClung. The doctor assessed the situation quickly, worked around my schedule (I’d just started a new job), and got me into surgery within a few days of my first visit.
As I healed, I read about ACL surgery and was amazed by what Dr. McClung had done. To me, to harvest a piece of my hamstring and thread it beneath my kneecap with the tiny incisions he’d made, seemed a bit like building a ship in a bottle. Dr. McClung did a fabulous job, and my recovery is going great. I’ve even been able to ride a large bike park in Cleveland with my new ACL. I would highly recommend Beacon and Dr. McClung.
- Greg Davis, BMX Racer
