. . . it just feels like it is. Yowza.
So Tuesday was kind of a rough day, personally. It was also beautiful outside, so I figured what I needed was to get a little sun and a little fresh air. A nice ride would do me good. So my thinking went.
So I headed out, and at about the halfway point, experienced my first crash. It was one of those stupid crashes, too- the kind where there's noone and nothing to blame except a boneheaded rider. What happened was, see, I was riding along just fine when I decided to turn up onto the sidewalk at an intersection- the better to be able to stop for a second and figure out what route I wanted to ride home. Unfortunately, I did not decide to slow down first, and I didn't decide to take the turn at a sharp enough angle. Basically, as I was altering my course, my wheel caught a groove in the pavement (like I was trying to cross a railroad track by riding parallel to it, if that makes sense), so my bike insisted on travelling a straight line as my body was committed to leaving that line. Not good.
I had a split second of sheer panic when I realized exactly what was happening. Then my brain determined that I was going down good and hard, and also that there was absolutley nothing to be done about it in the time available.
The human brain is a fascinating thing. Once mine had decided that there just wasn't time to remedy the situation, or even to take any meaningful action to lessen the impact, it then decided that it might as well take the opportunity for a nice, relaxed conversation with my self.
Self: AAAAAAA!!!
Brain: Relax, relax! It's going to be alright. Besides, there's nothing we can do about it anyway.
Self: It's going to be alright?
Brain: Suuure it is. We're wearing a helmet, aren't we?
Self: Uh-huh. I think so.
Brain: Of course we're wearing a helmet. Good thing, too, because at the speed we're hurtling down towards the concrete, it's just about certain we're going to smack our head on the ground. Fortunately, the helmet will provide excellent protection. It should work perfectly.
Self: OK.
Brain: Yep. I expect the ground will impact our head on the right side. Did you ever notice that our helmet sticks out a good ways from the head? It's designed that way, you know. That way, when you have a fall like we're having, you're protected. Wonderful, isn't it?
Self: I guess. What if we hit our face?
Brain: We're not going to hit our face. The helmet sticks out a little all the way around, see? To hit our face, we'd have to run into something that sticks out, like a curb, or a tree, or a fire hydrant or something.
Self: OK.
Brain: But, boy! If we did hit our face on something, that could be a disaster. Imagine if we ran into something mouth first. No more teeth, just like that. Um . . . hang on a second . . .
Self: What?! What is it?!
Brain: Oh, nothing, don't worry. I was just checking to make sure we aren't going to run into anything. No problems. We have plenty of flat concrete to land on. We're good.
Self: uh . . .OK.
Brain: You know who we haven't seen in awhile?
Self: Huh? What?
Brain: Our cousin Tommy. I wonder how he's doing. It's been years since we say him- Uncle Vincent's funeral, I think.
Self: Uh-huh. This helmet thing . . .
Brain: You know, it's still OK for people not to wear one if they don't want to. People can make their own choices.
Self: But it's a good thing we're wearing one, right?
Brain: Damn straight! Ha ha! You better believe it, buster! Hey, you know what I just thought of? It looks like they were right when they said there are two kinds of riders.
Self: Oh, shut up.
Brain: Oh, come now. You have to admit it when you're wrong. We're about to be a rider who's crashed. Before now, we hadn't crashed. Therefore, before now, we were a rider who was going to crash. So, there really are two kinds of riders.
Self: Shut up, I said.
Brain: Touchy, touchy. Sheesh. You know what else they were right about? The bike handling skills of triathletes . . .
Self: Oh, shut the fu-
Brain: Alright! Alright! I'm just sayin'. Nevermind. Hey, did we leave the iron on at home?
Self: Uh . . . huh? What?
Brain: Nah, I'm just screwing with ya now! Ha ha! We didn't even plug the iron in today!
Self: Should we call 911?
Brain: What are you, stupid? We don't have enough time to brace ourselves for the impact, but you think we should get out the phone, dial 911, and talk to the operator before landing? Listen, leave the thinking to me. We're going to be fine. We have a helmet on, and we're wearing it properl-
BLAM!!!
All of a sudden my brain got a lot less talky.
I landed mostly on my right hip when I went down, and besides the pain, the first thing I remember is getting myself untangled from my bike. I couldn't really stand up right away, so I crab walked my way up a little farther onto the sidewalk and started taking inventory. As I was cataloguing the various areas of pain, a super nice guy got out of his rig to check on me. I am proud to say that at this point, I remembered my citizenship in Slowtwitch Nation. When he asked me if I was OK, I said, "I'm fine- is my bike OK?"
He dragged my bike over to me and spent another minute or two to make sure I wasn't dying. After I assured him that I was OK and was just taking a minute to catch my breath, he left, and I decided to see if I could stand up. I could, but talk about stiff. Man. The bike was OK, except that the chain was dropped, and the handlebars and seat were about 60 degrees askew. All easily remedied. I debated with myself for a few minutes what to do- call for a lift home, or get back on the bike and try to ride hime myself. I figured that I should have a tailwind going back, and I could just soft pedal it, so I swung my leg over the bike (OUCH!) and started back home. Which was alright for a mile or two, and then I realized the wind had shifted and I was trying to ride into a stiff headwind. That wasn't happening- my hip hurt every time I applied a downstroke with any force at all. So I rode another few miles to the nearest shopping center, which happens to be the site of a local bike shop- and called Mrs. Vitus for a ride home.
I checked my helmet as I was standing outside the bike shop waiting for my ride. Not a scratch on it.
After a minute or two, the owner of the LBS saw me and came out to check on me. I told him I'd crashed, and that I was just waiting for my ride. He brought me inside and gave me a chair to sit in. That might have been the most comfortable chair I've ever sat in. He offered me a redbull, which I declined for no discernible reason. We chatted a little about my bike and his shop. He gave me a crash pack- for free. Try getting that kind of treatment from your online dealer.
Mrs. Vitus and the boys showed up shortly afterwards and helped me into the car. I left my bike at the LBS for a check-up. Convenient, huh?
Long story short, my hip is remarkably painful. The X-rays were negative, which is good, and the doc says the hip should be better in about two weeks. Mrs. Vitus says I need to buy some life insurance.
"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."
So Tuesday was kind of a rough day, personally. It was also beautiful outside, so I figured what I needed was to get a little sun and a little fresh air. A nice ride would do me good. So my thinking went.
So I headed out, and at about the halfway point, experienced my first crash. It was one of those stupid crashes, too- the kind where there's noone and nothing to blame except a boneheaded rider. What happened was, see, I was riding along just fine when I decided to turn up onto the sidewalk at an intersection- the better to be able to stop for a second and figure out what route I wanted to ride home. Unfortunately, I did not decide to slow down first, and I didn't decide to take the turn at a sharp enough angle. Basically, as I was altering my course, my wheel caught a groove in the pavement (like I was trying to cross a railroad track by riding parallel to it, if that makes sense), so my bike insisted on travelling a straight line as my body was committed to leaving that line. Not good.
I had a split second of sheer panic when I realized exactly what was happening. Then my brain determined that I was going down good and hard, and also that there was absolutley nothing to be done about it in the time available.
The human brain is a fascinating thing. Once mine had decided that there just wasn't time to remedy the situation, or even to take any meaningful action to lessen the impact, it then decided that it might as well take the opportunity for a nice, relaxed conversation with my self.
Self: AAAAAAA!!!
Brain: Relax, relax! It's going to be alright. Besides, there's nothing we can do about it anyway.
Self: It's going to be alright?
Brain: Suuure it is. We're wearing a helmet, aren't we?
Self: Uh-huh. I think so.
Brain: Of course we're wearing a helmet. Good thing, too, because at the speed we're hurtling down towards the concrete, it's just about certain we're going to smack our head on the ground. Fortunately, the helmet will provide excellent protection. It should work perfectly.
Self: OK.
Brain: Yep. I expect the ground will impact our head on the right side. Did you ever notice that our helmet sticks out a good ways from the head? It's designed that way, you know. That way, when you have a fall like we're having, you're protected. Wonderful, isn't it?
Self: I guess. What if we hit our face?
Brain: We're not going to hit our face. The helmet sticks out a little all the way around, see? To hit our face, we'd have to run into something that sticks out, like a curb, or a tree, or a fire hydrant or something.
Self: OK.
Brain: But, boy! If we did hit our face on something, that could be a disaster. Imagine if we ran into something mouth first. No more teeth, just like that. Um . . . hang on a second . . .
Self: What?! What is it?!
Brain: Oh, nothing, don't worry. I was just checking to make sure we aren't going to run into anything. No problems. We have plenty of flat concrete to land on. We're good.
Self: uh . . .OK.
Brain: You know who we haven't seen in awhile?
Self: Huh? What?
Brain: Our cousin Tommy. I wonder how he's doing. It's been years since we say him- Uncle Vincent's funeral, I think.
Self: Uh-huh. This helmet thing . . .
Brain: You know, it's still OK for people not to wear one if they don't want to. People can make their own choices.
Self: But it's a good thing we're wearing one, right?
Brain: Damn straight! Ha ha! You better believe it, buster! Hey, you know what I just thought of? It looks like they were right when they said there are two kinds of riders.
Self: Oh, shut up.
Brain: Oh, come now. You have to admit it when you're wrong. We're about to be a rider who's crashed. Before now, we hadn't crashed. Therefore, before now, we were a rider who was going to crash. So, there really are two kinds of riders.
Self: Shut up, I said.
Brain: Touchy, touchy. Sheesh. You know what else they were right about? The bike handling skills of triathletes . . .
Self: Oh, shut the fu-
Brain: Alright! Alright! I'm just sayin'. Nevermind. Hey, did we leave the iron on at home?
Self: Uh . . . huh? What?
Brain: Nah, I'm just screwing with ya now! Ha ha! We didn't even plug the iron in today!
Self: Should we call 911?
Brain: What are you, stupid? We don't have enough time to brace ourselves for the impact, but you think we should get out the phone, dial 911, and talk to the operator before landing? Listen, leave the thinking to me. We're going to be fine. We have a helmet on, and we're wearing it properl-
BLAM!!!
All of a sudden my brain got a lot less talky.
I landed mostly on my right hip when I went down, and besides the pain, the first thing I remember is getting myself untangled from my bike. I couldn't really stand up right away, so I crab walked my way up a little farther onto the sidewalk and started taking inventory. As I was cataloguing the various areas of pain, a super nice guy got out of his rig to check on me. I am proud to say that at this point, I remembered my citizenship in Slowtwitch Nation. When he asked me if I was OK, I said, "I'm fine- is my bike OK?"
He dragged my bike over to me and spent another minute or two to make sure I wasn't dying. After I assured him that I was OK and was just taking a minute to catch my breath, he left, and I decided to see if I could stand up. I could, but talk about stiff. Man. The bike was OK, except that the chain was dropped, and the handlebars and seat were about 60 degrees askew. All easily remedied. I debated with myself for a few minutes what to do- call for a lift home, or get back on the bike and try to ride hime myself. I figured that I should have a tailwind going back, and I could just soft pedal it, so I swung my leg over the bike (OUCH!) and started back home. Which was alright for a mile or two, and then I realized the wind had shifted and I was trying to ride into a stiff headwind. That wasn't happening- my hip hurt every time I applied a downstroke with any force at all. So I rode another few miles to the nearest shopping center, which happens to be the site of a local bike shop- and called Mrs. Vitus for a ride home.
I checked my helmet as I was standing outside the bike shop waiting for my ride. Not a scratch on it.
After a minute or two, the owner of the LBS saw me and came out to check on me. I told him I'd crashed, and that I was just waiting for my ride. He brought me inside and gave me a chair to sit in. That might have been the most comfortable chair I've ever sat in. He offered me a redbull, which I declined for no discernible reason. We chatted a little about my bike and his shop. He gave me a crash pack- for free. Try getting that kind of treatment from your online dealer.
Mrs. Vitus and the boys showed up shortly afterwards and helped me into the car. I left my bike at the LBS for a check-up. Convenient, huh?
Long story short, my hip is remarkably painful. The X-rays were negative, which is good, and the doc says the hip should be better in about two weeks. Mrs. Vitus says I need to buy some life insurance.
"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."
