Spills and Thrills
It was bound to happen sooner or later but I just had my first spill on the bike today. Coming off the trail by the canal that I take in order to avoid riding in traffic, I directed the bike through the gate towards the stairs. Of course my handle bar caught on the gate post and the wheel turned sideways as I continued forwards, reassuringly following all known laws of physics, and down the stairs.
A moment later I had bruised up my hand and scraped up knee and was laying on my back taking deep breaths. A lovely bruise was starting on the side of my left thigh where the handlebar - I assume - had hit it. The bruise has since spread down my leg, like one of those chromatography experiments we all did in chemistry class. As I lay there on the gravel, in front of the parking garage at work, I did a quick inventory of my parts and finding nothing broken I paused only to catch my breath.
I rose and finished riding to my building where I walked in with blood streaming down my leg - and felt perversely good about myself for it. As I walked to my cubicle the thing that really struck me, though, is that as I lay there a few minutes before next to the parking garage, people had been driving their cars into it and not one of the many cars had even honked or rolled down its window.
Comments
Wow! Blood! Now you are a man! I fear bleeding - but when I wreck and get wounded, I feel übertough.
Hope you have some gloves. I always feel kind of self conscious with gloves, in a "I bet the "real" bike riders are going to think I'm a poser" sort of way, but when I got side swiped and slid into the middle of a busy intersection, and had only my bare hands and wrist to stop me, I learned.
Glad you are ok.
Posted by: Boegle | September 18, 2006 12:43 AM
That's so Fight Club to walk into work all bloody. You're the man! You're one BA LoFatMo. I would have stopped to check on you laying outside the parking lot, unless I was running late for passdown. Sorry, you know how it is.
One part of the story I was wondering about... if you hadn't fallen down the stairs, were you going to ride down them on a road bike?
Posted by: Les | September 18, 2006 9:47 AM
I might need to get gloves, though it's not the other bikers I fear, I just don't want to feel like one of those total prats who is all kitted out.
And thanks for the vote of support Les, good to know my own friends would ignore the bleeding in the parking lot but laud it in conference room. I was taking the stairs on a mountain bike ... a road bike is just too expensive to be messing around with.
Posted by: Lo Fat Mo | September 18, 2006 10:52 AM
Yeah - gloves rock. Not to be too mother hen-ish about it. But they will totally save your hands in a fall. /cluck
Posted by: boegle | September 19, 2006 1:45 PM
The damn paparazzi caught you!
Posted by: Les | September 19, 2006 3:31 PM
Have you recently been told to fuck right off?
Posted by: Lo Fat Mo | September 19, 2006 4:16 PM