Sunday, March 05, 2006

Rules of the road.

It's entirely possible, I suppose, that the man who ran us off the bike path today didn't know about courtesy and the rules of the road on public bike paths.
Maybe.
All I know is the blur of events about 20 miles into our ride today: the large group of roller skaters coming toward us, my husband maybe 5 yards in front of me, me checking the proximity of the lead skater, and then suddenly, my husband was right at my front wheel. I hollered, hit both brakes hard, ran my front tire ran precisely into his back gear assembly. (Pop. Hiss) and then I and the back of the bike went over my front wheel, and I was on the ground, on my right side, legs entangled in the bike. My first "endo" (end-over)

  • Thought #1: "shit. I hope I didn't damage my new bike"
  • Thought #2: "I hope I didn't damage Husband's bike"
  • Thought #3: "why can't I breathe"?
Then, people standing over me. Weird noise when I tried to breathe. Starting to worry about not beaing able to breathe. Like the occasional hysteric that I am, wonding if I had some sort of sucking chest wound. Relief comes when someone asks, "get the wind knocked out of you?" (nerd I am, I have to look this up when I got home)
I found out later that a cyclist on a mountain bike who was behind the skaters decided not to yield or wait, but instead go around and head direction at Husband rather than, oh, say, taking his mountain bike onto the DIRT PATH IT WAS MADE FOR.

In any case, the faces peering at me as I lay on the ground, gasping did not include his. He slowed down briefly to ask if we needed to use a cell phone, but my husband was so furious that he didn't trust himself to talk to him, so he told him to more on. My shoulder--ugh, Husband has to help me with dressing for a few days, and since we're doing 8th-grade standardized testing at work my poor colleagues get to help with the Giant Box of Tests. I don't think there's any permanant damage done but you're definitely not supposed to land there, and I won't be swimming for a while. Vicadin is my friend right now.
Both our bikes are in the shop, Husband's for some bent teeth on his back sprocket assembly, and mine for a possible crushed bearing in the steering turny thing (head set, is the technical term). I won't get to ride my new beautious wonder until Saturday, which is when we leave to do a duathlon on Saturday.

The good news is that, I was lucky, actually, and statistically if someone is, probablistically speaking, supposed to have so many endos in their lifetime, that's one down for me. Fewer to worry about.

None of this change the fact, however, that the guy is a narcissistic asshole. There, I said it.

4 comments:

  1. Ouch. I had an accident last summer and it turned out to be a shoulder separation (torn ligaments between the collar bone and the shoulder). The exercises a physical therapist gave me really helped. When I went back to swimming after 8 weeks or so, swimming with a snorkel and doing freestyle with underwater recovery was the least strain.

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  2. You know your a triathlete when you worry about your bike before you worry about your own safety. Glad to hear your ok. It really hurts to stick your shuolder in the ground as if you're a lawn dart.

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  3. This breaks my heart. I just caught up on your blog, was SO excited about your birthday present, only to find this crash report.

    What a jerkface rider. Patience isn't only a virtue, it can save lives.

    I have to say, it's hysterical that your first thoughts were for your bike. :) I'm the same way.

    Hope you feel better soon!!!

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