I want to write here about the cyclist Taylor Phinney, but before I get to Phinney, I need to make a brief plea to American sports fans, and especially American cycling fans, but really to sports fans of any kind. This weekend, if you can, get your tush to Richmond, Va., to the 2015 UCI World Cycling Championships. If Richmond is a drive you can make in a day, make the drive in a day. (From Omaha, Neb., it is a 19-hour drive, according to Google Maps. You can make it if you leave RIGHT NOW.) If you have to cancel your football viewing party, cancel your football viewing party—it’s only Week 3; the NFC East will still stink when you get back. If you can’t find a baby sitter, plunk the kids in front of “The Godfather” and “The Godfather: Part II” on repeat. Actually, take the kids. Worlds in Richmond is a seismic moment for cycling in this country—the best women on the planet race Saturday, and the best men Sunday—and major cycling events are a party. Even minor cycling events are a party. Trust me on this. Think of the Super Bowl, with shaved legs and better tasting beer. Worlds is the most significant sporting event in America this weekend, and for the love of Ron Jaworski, I don’t want to hear about the Eagles-Jets game.

OK, so Taylor Phinney.

If you follow professional bike racing, and maybe if you don’t, you’ve noticed a bit of a void in the sport for the last 15 months. A bit of a gray, a noticeable lack of humor, not to mention the absence of some excellent hair. That’s because Phinney—the son of former champions Connie Carpenter and Davis Phinney and one of the best young riders in the country—was out of the sport, due to a harrowing injury at the U.S. National Championships in May 2014, during which witnesses said a fast-descending Phinney maneuvered to avoid an official’s motorcycle and collided with a guard rail. Phinney’s fractured left leg looked like a “Friday the 13th” trailer. For a while, there was real worry about whether or not he’d compete again, whether that scarred leg would come close to producing anywhere near the horsepower it once unleashed before.

Now Phinney, 25, is back—almost astonishingly. After a lengthy rehabilitation, he surfaced in late summer at races in Utah and Colorado, winning a triumphant stage in the latter. Earlier this week in Richmond, he and his teammates from the BMC Racing Team were victorious in defending their team time trial world championship. On Wednesday, riding as part of the U.S. team, Phinney finished an impressive 12th in the individual time trial, giving the U.S. men hope for an additional slot at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

There’s been a lot said about Phinney’s crash and return, but I was more curious about the period of time in the middle in which Phinney couldn’t ride his bike very hard at all. We’re all so accustomed to the sweaty odyssey of the rehabilitating athlete—determined to return, toiling in solitude, working their way back as fast as possible (in TV commercials there is always a shot of the lonely athlete running in a swimming pool). But sometimes determination isn’t enough. Sometimes the body just needs a break. Sometimes the head does, too.

Injury forced Phinney to unplug. At first, it made him crazy—he wanted back. But then he began painting, painting sometimes for the entire day, expressing his creative self. (One of Phinney’s sponsors, Lululemon, made a great short film about his painting.) He took flying lessons and got a pilot’s license. He’d hung out with friends, lived life “kind of like a 24-year-old,” as he put it.

“I look at that now as a huge gift,” Phinney said the other day. “This last year-and-a-half really has been the most rewarding year-and-a-half I’ve had on the planet.”

“I could explore this massive world outside of cycling that I had not been able to explore,” Phinney said. “I started racing when I was 15. I qualified for the Olympics when I was 17. Pretty much from the time I was a senior in high school until a year and a half ago, this has been my life.”

This is the part where I’m supposed to theorize that Phinney’s crash was the best thing that ever happened. Ugh, I wouldn’t theorize that. The crash was horrible—you wouldn’t wish it on anyone. “I’ve never seen anyone experience so much pain,” said Carpenter. But the time away had opened a door that elite athletes seldom get to open mid-career.

Taylor Phinney got to find the rest of Taylor Phinney.

“He realized getting back was going to be a much longer and daunting process, and maybe not even possible,” said Davis Phinney. “And while he was diligent in his time off, doing everything right in physical therapy, he realized he couldn't keep himself on that knife’s edge. That’s what gave him the mental and emotional space.”

“It gave him perspective that few riders ever get, and it gave him an enforced wisdom and maturity that I don’t think he’d have if he just rolled through the normal progression.”

“Taylor knows he is going to be OK if he can’t bike race,” said Carpenter. She said she felt this way before Taylor’s crash, but the time since has reinforced that belief.

The Phinney-Carpenters, of course, know about cycling and perspective. Both parents are athletic legends—Carpenter competed in the Olympics in both speed skating and cycling, winning gold in the women’s bike race in 1984, and Davis Phinney is a Colorado-born Olympian who also won two stages of the Tour de France. At age 40, Davis Phinney was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and established a foundation in his name, but the pair (who also have a daughter, Kelsey, a neuroscience major at Middlebury College and captain of the nordic ski team) remain active in the sport. They’re also close with top U.S. cyclist Evelyn Stevens, who will compete in the women’s race Saturday.

To be clear: Taylor Phinney is ecstatic to be back on his bike. He said he was “overwhelmed to the point I couldn’t express myself” after the BMC team time trial win, thrilled he could share it with his family and friends who had been at his side during his recovery. That recovery isn't complete: Phinney’s left leg is far from returned to normal. Cycling is one of the few activities he can manage.

“I can’t run,” he said. “If I tried to run, I could run maybe 100 meters as a light jog and then my left leg would just stop working. But I can do a team time trial for 45 minutes.”

Phinney now takes a longer view. He said he feels “lucky” to be in a sport where he can compete when he’s not 100%. Friday in Richmond, there is a fundraiser for Davis’s foundation, where they’ll auction off some bike pumps Taylor painted. On Sunday, Taylor will be in the field for the men’s road race, which includes a cobbled hill straight out of a European cycling fantasy. He’s not a favorite to win but that’s OK. Taylor Phinney is going to be OK. He knows that more than ever.

Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com