9/15/2009: Bike wreck

Man, I haven’t had a real bike accident since 1997, but this morning was my day of reckoning. I was on my morning commute to work and while taking a right turn in Tualatin, caught a lip and got taken off balance just enough to lay the bike down and scrape myself up pretty good. Now my right leg is scraped in 4 places and my left elbow has three scrapes. My right wrist and ankle are pretty sore as well. I fell on the right wrist and leg pretty hard, so that made sense. And the foot must have stayed caught in the pedal clips too long, so the ankle soreness makes sense. But how did I get the left arm involved? I’m still trying to figure that one out. My handle bars ended up backwards, so I’m guessing my arm flipped around with the bars while I was falling and the left arm ended up in an awkward position. Whatever it was, it was no fun. Traffic stopped to check me out and a pedestrian close by was really concerned for me. Thinking back on the fall, it must have looked really bad. But after reorienting myself, I got back in the saddle and finished the second half of the ride. I definitely have a little more respect for the road after that. Wrecks can be good…well, sorta.