cycling.finial.com

Went out for a ride this afternoon as it was a nice day. I took the southwest route through Dover and Wellesley and was returning via the Esplanade, when some idiot kid jogger wearing and ipod and not paying any attention to what he was doing ran right off the Mass Ave bridge, across the entire bike path without even looking. Of course, I happened to be there exactly then and, because of the ipod, he didn’t hear me yelling.

Now, I wasn’t going all that fast, maybe 10 or 12 mph, but it’s too fast to stop on a dime. I missed him but it threw me off the road, nearly missing a tree. My tire flatted and I went down.

I just laid there for a minute trying to catch my breath and assess whether anything (that is, me) was damaged. Luckily, I was wearing the shorts that are about ready for the scrap heap. No damage to the jersey. I’ve got some road rash and I can tell my shoulder and hip are going to be mighty sore tomorrow. I can tell you one thing, though. I’m glad I was wearing a helmet. My head did an audible crack on the pavement. The helmet doesn’t look damaged, though.

The bike is damaged. How severely, I’m not sure yet. It’s not rideable. I’m hoping the wheels can be trued, and from what I can see, I think they can be. Both STI shifters are bent, but I’m hoping it’s just been twisted around the handlebars and not damaged internally. I won’t be able to tell until I get it unwrapped. It still seems to brake and shift, so we’ll see. If all goes well, it should be less than $200 in damage, including the new tire. If all does not go well, it could be significantly more (those STI shifters are very expensive). Luckily, while I hit the pavement, I think most of the bike hit the dirt. There is dirt impacted into the left STI, but it doesn’t seem to be scratched, so I’m hoping for the best.

I had to walk the bike home in stocking feet, about a mile and a half. I had to open the brake adjusters so the wheel would turn. The bike is now on its perch, forlorn and dejected. Tomorrow I’ll have to take it over to the shop to see what the damage is, as Wednesday I have a client meeting and Thursday will be cutting it too close to the weekend.

Damn. The kid seemed apologetic, and gave me his phone number. Whether it’s actually his or not, I don’t know. It’s area code 813 which is Tampa, and a reverse lookup says it’s a cell phone, so my guess is it’s fake. I didn’t look at the number before I left, but then I wasn’t thinking clearly enough at the time anyway.

Bastard. I guess the ride this weekend is probably off now. I’ve already registered and paid for this one, too.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 22nd, 2005 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Rides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.