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November 29, 2006 | Bike vs. Ice



I've been waking up early even though I don't have to. And since I'm up, I might as well go on a bike ride, right? There's not many people on the trail at 8am, so it's almost like I have the whole thing to myself.

The past weeks or so it's been raining intermittently, and it's been pretty darn cold. The boyfriend has been riding his bike to work, and he warned me that the trail has been icy. I didn't really notice it until I got to the first wooden bridge. I slowed down a little, and it was fine. Really, the only tricky part was the large wooden bridge that spans Central Expressway. There's a twisty ramp to get you up to the actual bridge and the whole thing was icy. I managed to make it over without a problem and continued on my ride.

The way back however...

This trail happens to be more uphill on the way back. Or maybe it just feels that way because I'm tired, but I DIGRESS. I made it to the big bridge, and slowly made my way up the ramp. I huffed and puffed my way over, and coasted down. I slowed down even more, and turned to go down the twisty part to get me back to the trail. I was almost home free and then the inevitable happened. I hit a slippery patch of ice, and before I knew what to do, the bike and I fell to the ground with a thud. My first though was, "Did anybody see me?" I looked around, and there were no witnesses. Thank god. That would have made the whole thing even more embarrassing. I picked myself up, picked the bike up, and finished my ride.

I haven't fallen down on a bike since the early 80's. That time I was on my borther's Diamondback BMX, and I shredded most of my right leg. I manged to escape this time with just a few bruises and a decent scrape my right knee. So really, not all that bad. Though bad enough that I decided I deserved a present for all my trouble. So I bought myself some more knee socks.







Comments

did your socks help you at all?



Scary! Glad you're okay, and I hope the knee socks make the bruises better. I'm sure they will.



you are a total bad ass! no tears and no whining! well done!



The knee socks will help heal that knee in no time!



Man, that sucks. It happens so fast, I know.

The last time it happened to me I was crossing some railroad track and this crazy bitch was totally in my way so I couldn't cross at a safe perpendicular angle. I took a header, chin-first and ended up with this tremendous black bruise that looked like a soul patch. I was in my mid-20s when this happened and I got so sick of people asking me, with stricken looks on their faces, "What happened?" and having to tell them, sheepishly, that I fell off my bike.

It took like a whole month for the bruise to fade completely away.

Anyway, I'm glad you treated yourself to some socks. I think ice cream would have been in order as well.



Yikes! Glad you didn't hurt yourself too badly. : )


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