Crash! Rain! Flat!

I swear this day must have happened just to spice up this blog!

What a day this was... Before I go on, I'll quickly say that yes, I did crash on my bike today. But I'm fine. Just a few scrapes and road rash, the usual deal with such incidents, nothing to be concerned about. Here's the story of my day:

The plan: 56 mile bike ride followed by a 4 mile transition run

Started out on the tri-bike, nice easy start on my way out of the city and into the nice, quiet suburbs... Less than 5 miles into my ride, I approached an intersection (the road had a small divider) where a car from the oncoming direction was in line for a left turn. I saw him. He saw me. Then, with the right of way, as I continued approaching the intersection, he lurched forward as if he was going to continue with his turn and cut me off. Two instinctual reactions ensued. I screamed "Nooooooooooo!" and squeezed the heck out of my brakes... the bike immediately started to fishtail for what felt like an eternity. I couldn't believe I kept the bike upright for so long actually. I remember thinking that I might actually come out of this ok. My feet were clipped into my pedals, and I was probably going too fast for unclipping to have helped. I never thought about unclipping in those split seconds. Probably staying clipped in gave me better control of the bike anyway, just apparently not enough to avoid crashing ;^) So I went down, I mean first I slowed down considerably by braking, and by the time I was on my way down, I guess then my shoes snapped out of the pedals and I was able to 'lay down' the bike as gently as one could while crashing.

What happened to me? I literally bounced up off the pavement and only caught a view of the driver passing through the intersection waving his hand. He didn't stop, even to check to see if I was ok. There was no other significant traffic on the road, no car behind me or such. So I let my bike lay in the street, and just stepped up on the sidewalk to assess the damage to my body: two big scrapes on my left arm/elbow, a nic on my left thumb, and a scrape through my bike shorts on my left thigh. (Later I discovered a small scrape on my abdomen as well.)

Well, ok - nothing too bad, pedestrians came by to offer their help. Two ladies from a local business offered a hose to wash my wounds and then some neosporin and bandaids. They were very kind. My bike ended up mostly unscathed. The left brake lever got scuffed up a bit, no damage to the frame or anything else that I could tell.

So I was ok and my bike was ok. I asked myself whether there was still a bike ride left to salvage out of the day? I decided so. So I got back on the bike and continued riding. The crash could have been much worse for sure, so I felt lucky really. I mean I made no contact with the car, and I didn't have anything broken. I've ridden over 2000 miles in the last 19 weeks, so I guess something like this was bound to happen.

About an hour later, after already riding through some large puddles and small sprinkles, it absolutely poured for a good 15 minutes. It came down like a waterfall. I had to pull over to wipe the stinging sunblock out of my eyes. Oh what fun to ride in the rain. Actually I'm serious, it felt very refreshing. So, ok - my bandaids had long since sweated/fallen off, my scrapes were pulsing a tad bit, but I was far more distracted then by being completely waterlogged from helmet to cleats. I exchange pleasantries with a couple other riders out there along the wet and wild roads. We're all in this together.

Anyway, eventually the clouds drifted and the sun poked its way through. "Wow," I say to myself with about 20 miles left to get home, "what a great day this turned out to be." I navigate the roads and continue cruising at a still pretty decent pace given the crash and the rain. After all that, what else could go wrong!?

Ha ha, yeah... about 8 miles left in my ride, I felt a knifelike slash to my rear tire, all the air gushed out in an instantaneous swoosh. There was an inch long cut right through my tire, must have been a piece of glass. I could have changed the tube, but the tire no longer offered any protection. Luckily I was about a mile away from a bike shop where I could get a new tire. So I started walking...

Let me tell you, cycling shoes are not meant for walking. Well, not more than like 20 steps to get to and from your home to where you can ride. Their soles are very stiff, so it was a click-click-click-click.... experience for a long stretch. Along the way, another postulate rang true. Wet feet + wet shoes - socks = blisters! Ugh, walking in those wet cleats without socks was giving me some major discomfort. Sucks.

Anyway, finally got to the bike shop, and after way too long a wait, got a new tire and tube mounted, then got back in the saddle and spun my way home, satisfied that I finished my initial planned ride. Was seriously contemplating going for that transition run, but then decided against it so as not to exacerbate my new blisters.

This day will not break my spirit, if anything, it only strenthens me.

Thanks for reading.