That’s Going to Leave a Mark

There’s a saying among motorcycle riders: You will lay your bike down at some point. There’s no way to avoid it, even the most careful rider will have something happen to them. Likewise for bike riders: You will fall off your bike. For me, it happened yesterday.
I was riding down a hill, going pretty fast to stay in front of the approaching traffic behind me. I got in the left turn lane, and sat up in the saddle to get a view of the oncoming traffic. Sure enough, a car was approaching from the other direction, so I put on the brakes. Apparently, a little too hard, as my front wheel started going wobbly, and I lost control and went over the side onto the asphalt, hard. Luckily, all the cars around me were able to stop, and at least 4 of them made sure I was okay before proceeding. I ended up taking a large chunk of skin off my forearm near my elbow, and scraped my back and bruised my hip. But I didn’t hit my head, and I was able to ride the 25 minutes the rest of the way home. Lisa cleaned me up and bandaged me up. Changing the dressings this morning was pretty ugly, and it’s going to take a while to heal properly. I felt like I could have ridden to work if I really needed to, but I decided to ride the bus instead. I really only feel a little bit sore, and the wounds look a lot worse than they feel, probably because I have no nerve endings left there.
There is one week left of the Zipcar Low Car Diet, so I’m committed to taking the bus for at least that week. But man, it is tempting to just hop in the car and drive in.