The Power of Locomotion: Take 3

From disastrous beginning to dismal end: 45 minutes. Which I guess is pretty good, given the fact that there were probably about five minutes in there where I wasn’t riding my bike, but simply trying to either reattach my belongings to my bike, or get back on my bike.

It seems that I must have been lucky on my two previous attempts at riding to work, because this morning I was my usual, klutzy, uncoordinated self. I really wanted to try to ride to work in under 40 minutes, as I wasn’t convinced that I was going at top speeds for my capabilities. What occurred first, then, to derail my goals, was I hit a huge pothole and (rather comically) watched my front bag go flying. I skidded to a stop to also find that my change of clothes had wafted out of my saddlebag and landed in a dirty heap on the ground. It wasn’t that funny at the time, but it did give me an inkling that this ride wasn’t going to be sub par.

Next, on my jaunt through the back way to Washtenaw (the way I discovered to avoid the rather dangerous highway merging) had been grated since Wednesday. This is excellent for cars; not so much for bikes. The small mounds of loose dirt, and the gravel made riding just a little treacherous. At this point, I was beginning to realize I probably wasn’t going to make the ride in under 40 mins.

Next, I came to the conclusion that cars are a menace. I was crossing the street (or rather, I was trying to cross the street) in which I had right-of-way (i.e., the “Walk” was flashing at the sidewalk) and a car that was turning right decided to turn right in front of me, and I had to come to an abrupt stop. What is almost comical about it is I was staring at the driver, trying to figure out what he was doing, and the driver was staring at me, presumably trying to figure out what I was doing, and even though it was clear that I was moving forward to cross the street, he opted to turn right right in front of me. Now, obviously getting hit by a car would not be an optimal turn of events, so I hit the brakes. But, it became clear that cars are just menacing, and either we should all by running / biking to work, or people should only be allowed to use mass transit.

The final thing that occurred did not happen very far (in time or distance) from this near miss. And this was the final straw that led me to take it easy for the rest of the ill-fated ride. The judges are still out about whether I was thrown, or whether I just let myself go (with the unconscious thought that it would hurt less), but the long and short of it is I went over a bump, lost my balance, and fell off my bike. The fall wasn’t that bad (I didn’t feel too shaken), but it was a bad jar for my shoulder and neck. That was the point is which I decided I just *might* not be able to make the return trip home this afternoon.

So, while I normally don’t like to exploit my embarrassing antics in a public domain, I thought I would share my “trials and tribulations” (as Mark is fond of saying) in my attempts to get to work under the power of my own locomotion.

Stayed tuned for next week’s episode: As temperatures rise, Christy will have to navigate her ever increasing need-for-speed with her own inabilities to keep her balance. Will she be able to cross traffic lights without getting hit? Or will the sun cause her to spontaneously combust. Find out next time on The Power of Locomotion!