oops

I’m a moderately skilled cyclist. I’m fairly likely to remain upright on my bike in most situations. I’m comfortable riding in traffic, near cars (and doors that may open at any moment) and taking the lane when it’s required.

I’m not good at crossing railroad tracks, it seems. I took a different route out of work toward the light rail. In hindsight, this was a bad idea. It required crossing the tracks on 7th street, and then crossing them again to actually travel down 7th street. See the map (zoom in to just about street level):


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I was traveling west on Jackson, making a left on 7th to head south. Note the railroad tracks. I know they’re there. I cross them all the time. The surface is terrible, but I usually just bunny hop over the tracks. I didn’t bunny hop quite far enough today… Caught my front wheel just in the angled track rut area, went skidding down on my left side, and hit the ground hard. Hard enough to actually send my lip balm shooting out of my fully closed messenger bag where it came to rest about six feet away.

Is it sad that my first two thoughts were:

1. Shit, there goes my rear derailleur.
2. Thank god I didn’t fall on my knife side!

I have beautifully forming bruises in a crescent shape around my left knee, a bruise blossoming on my left hip, elbow, and shoulder. Ugh. Not much broken skin though–just some abrasions on my knee and elbow. I guess that’s the advantage to commuting in my regular clothes and not spandex. I would’ve shredded my knee (I was wearing long shorts) and probably ripped the shoulder of my jersey (I was wearing a sturdy cotton t-shirt) if I were commuting in full kit.

Though this is always one of the dangers of cycling on the road, stuff like this always takes me by surprise. I’m going to hurt tomorrow!

I am clumsy. It’s true. While I pride myself on being fairly athletic and able to do many varied sport-like tasks (cycling, snowboarding, basketball, lacrosse, BBQing, drinking beer), I cannot be trusted with my own body to do things like walking or slowly rolling from point A to point B. It has become apparent in the last few years that I am much better off moving fast than I am at slow to moderate rates of speed.

On Monday, while taking my bike off the rack on top of my car, I managed to do it exactly wrong and I had the bike come tipping toward me. I caught it and kept it from falling (whew!), but managed to catch it just so and I crushed my right thumb, right on the knuckle where thumb meets palm. Ow. I have a nice bruise there.

Yesterday I rode my bike a lot (yay!) and after riding to and from work, then to Sarah’s house to teach her how to use her new ‘puter, I was rolling slowly away from her apartment when I realized quite late that I had a flat tire. In this case, “quite late” means “as I was falling.” I was trying to make a narrow 90 degree right-hand turn during this realization. Normally this is not difficult, but when your front tire is flat and you try to both accelerate slightly and put more weight forward (while on damp concrete) the bike will (gasp!) give way. As I’m feeling the bike slide out from under me and am crashing to the concrete, I think three things:

1. Oh shit.
2. My computer!
3. Oh shit, my computer!

Luckily my laptop was fine. (And thank you Sarah, for changing my flat with your Master Tech skills.) I did manage to smoosh the rest of my right hand up nicely. I’ve got a quarter-sized bruise on the top of my right hand, just between the tendons of the ring and pinky fingers. Let me tell you that fate and my hand are clearly trying to express something to me. I can’t tell if it’s “go faster” or “stop” so I’m just going to keep going. My bike commute today was without incident, so hopefully I won’t collect my third right hand injury until tomorrow.

File these under the Insult To Injury catagory: There was a guy standing in the street watching me as I skidded to a stop on my hip and hand. He kept asking me if I was OK. I replied that my pride was irreparably damaged, but I was otherwise fine. Also, I noticed today that I have cracked the right hood of my shifters. Bah. I shall disguise it tomorrow with black electrical tape.

ETA: I should also point out that over the weekend I put no less than three holes in my right hand. Two from assembling the new dresser (a giant splinter and a cut) and some mysterious cut between my index and middle knuckle that appeared Sunday-ish.