{"id":727,"date":"2010-10-27T09:29:32","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T14:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/?p=727"},"modified":"2010-10-27T09:30:34","modified_gmt":"2010-10-27T14:30:34","slug":"nother-bike-wreck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/?p=727","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Nother Bike Wreck?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Three close calls. \u00a0That&#8217;s the limit, the way I\u2019ve heard it. \u00a0These are the kinds of things that &#8220;come in threes,&#8221; right? \u00a0Of course they do.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Ooops!\" src=\"http:\/\/ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp-img\/bicycle-crash.jpg\" alt=\"bike wreck\" width=\"350\" height=\"322\" align=\"right\" \/>Except not. \u00a0Assumptions like that can lead to eventful days&#8211;like yesterday. \u00a0Being a warm October day, I thought I&#8217;d bike into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ci.durham.nc.us\/\">Durham<\/a> on the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Tobacco_Trail\">American Tobacco Trail<\/a> and try out the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Early_voting\">early voting<\/a> opportunities there. \u00a0A mile from home, I hit something in the leaf litter that threw me onto my front tire. \u00a0I was balanced there, like one of those stunt motorcyclists. \u00a0I held it together on one wheel for a second and righted myself. \u00a0On I went.<\/p>\n<p>Crossing a normally peaceful side street, I was confronted by a hurtling, two-ton vehicle bearing down on me. \u00a0Brake hard; take evasive action. \u00a0Check.<\/p>\n<p>Later, taking off from a stop at a light, going straight, a driver beside me decided to make a right regardless of my existence in the space toward which he headed his car. \u00a0The booming bass and rattling widows gave me an aural picture of what I had to miss. \u00a0Sporting of him. \u00a0Not even that close.<\/p>\n<p>And we&#8217;re riding! \u00a0We&#8217;re riding!<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But back to unfounded assumptions: \u00a0When you cheat injury and death three times in an hour, you may start to relax a little. \u00a0You may well ask, &#8220;What else could happen?&#8221; \u00a0Dangerous question, that.<\/p>\n<p>I found out how dangerous minutes later, grinding up a hill. \u00a0I encountered a couple of cyclists toiling along side by side, a little more slowly than myself. \u00a0As I passed, the woman on the left unaccountably veered left, hooking her handlebars into mine and driving me into the loose gravel on the side of the trail. \u00a0With no steering and no traction, there was nothing I could do but attend to the falling.<\/p>\n<p>I did OK at that, but I must have fallen onto her pedals or her recurved handlebars because I took a deep bruise to the thigh. \u00a0I also scraped up my left hand and chin and drove my right palm down hard to break the fall. \u00a0That whole arm aches from the shock. \u00a0The bike&#8217;s a mess, too&#8211;a boon for the bike shop, no doubt. \u00a0The wreck broke the brakes on both front and rear. \u00a0Various parts will need replacing at some considerable expense. \u00a0As another old saying has it, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/it's_an_ill_wind_that_blows_nobody_any_good\">It\u2019s an ill wind that blows nobody any good<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I suppose the other cyclist was hurt, too, at least a little. \u00a0I couldn&#8217;t stick around the find out. \u00a0Something newsworthy was about to happen if I stayed there, and one simply does not want to appear in the local press in that sort of light. \u00a0With my rear brake completely bound up, I picked up my bike for the three-mile walk home. \u00a0The thigh was really painful at this point. \u00a0Luckily, I was able to free up the brake a little later and make some slow progress. \u00a0With no brakes, it had to be slow progress. \u00a0I had to walk the downhill stretches or risk another crash.<\/p>\n<p>Arriving home, I was greeted by my little boy, who was very concerned about his old Dad but glad this wreck was not as bad as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/?p=21\">my last one<\/a>. \u00a0He wanted to know where he could kiss me or hug me without hurting me. \u00a0What a nice boy, but I had to tell him there just weren\u2019t very many places like that on me. \u00a0He cheered me up as only he can do, though,and I felt much better after a shower.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three close calls. \u00a0That&#8217;s the limit, the way I\u2019ve heard it. \u00a0These are the kinds of things that &#8220;come in threes,&#8221; right? \u00a0Of course they do. Except not. \u00a0Assumptions like that can lead to eventful days&#8211;like yesterday. \u00a0Being a warm October day, I thought I&#8217;d bike into Durham on the American Tobacco Trail and try [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-life-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=727"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}