Every year I fall off my bike once. Typically, this happens on the first day of biking when I forget that my feet are attached to the pedals. I stop, try to put my foot down without unhooking the SPD cleat, and topple over. It’s as consistent as it is embarrassing, and every year I vow to not forget on my first trip. This year I didn’t forget. This year I unhooked myself at my first and every consequent stop and life took on a sheen of peace and beauty that can only come from not looking like a complete tool at a busy intersection. O, how fleeting these moments in the sun!
Bojana and I had a plan for this weekend. It was a good plan, almost a great plan even. We like to bike. We like to celebrate things like, say, anniversaries by biking a lot and having a tooting good time doing it. Our anniversary this year fell on a busy weekend, but we could see the Perth Cyclosportif not too far off, so we convinced my brother and sister-in-law to watch the boys for the day while we traipsed 100km across eastern Ontario. We balked at the registration cost (IIRC it had almost doubled from the year before. Gasp!) and came up with plan B. Plan B involved parking the Berry Bus at Le Nordik (the local nordic spa), doing 45 km of hilly Gatineau Park, and then lolling around in the spa for a couple of hours until we had to collect the kids. Alas, when we woke this morning, we both had scratchy throats, and decided that maybe a weakened cardiovascular system would not mesh well with long climbs. Suddenly, plan C burst forth Athena-like from my skull and we set off instead for Art Is In, an awesomeballs bakery that is precisely 22.5 km from our place (I did drop the boys off at my brother’s first, of course. We didn’t just abandon them at home. What were you thinking? You monsters!) . We travel the same distance, with a suitable reward, and we only have to deal with the Corkstown ridge. Luxury! This plan secretly worked for me because I hadn’t ridden the “Big Bike” for a while, and I like to easy into these things (I’ve been riding the Mamachari (btw: that pic, while mine, is from this article. Go read it!) a lot lately (a 2009 Kona AfricaBike sporting a coaster brake) and my only long rides this year have been on British bikes (note: this is foreshadowing if you are familiar with the difference between British and North American bikes.)
I intended to blog about the ride, and so took copious photos. There’s some nice fall foliage,
and a photo of the new totally awesome bike crossing at Holly Acres,
and I have many, many pictures of Boj’s back as she biked in front of me. This, I decided, wasn’t good enough. I decided to be Dan. I said to Boj: “Boj,” I said, “I will power up ahead of you until I get to a good vantage point and then I shall photograph you in all you glory on your steel steed.” To which she replied, “Why are you talking that way?”
I ignored this and sallied forth. To speed my phone (aka camera, obvs) retrieval, instead of putting it in the usual pouch on my bar bag, I slipped it into the open mesh pocket. As I powered down the bike path to the much sought after good vantage point, I hit a bump. The phone, sensing the opportunity for escape, leapt from the mesh pocket and skittered away across the pavement, looking for a safe hiding place. I looked back, intent on watching for its final resting place and squeezed hard on the brakes. As my front wheel locked up, and my bike’s momentum carried it up and over the wheel with me along for the ride, I remembered that bikes in the UK have their brakes levers reversed.
Personally, I’m surprised but glad that I didn’t break anything. Bojana said the whole thing looked like it happened in slow motion, and I agree: Once I had gone past 60° there was nothing I could do. I didn’t have my hands on the brakes anymore; I couldn’t even get my feet out of the clips. I did manage to twist, so I didn’t land on my head. Instead, my right knee absorbed the full brunt of the fall. Ouch. I could say that my pride was hurt thanks to the dozens of onlookers who stood around (at a distance, thanks people!) gawking at me, but fuck that. MY KNEE HURTS.
Anyway. I picked myself up, brushed myself off, and admired the trickle of blood running down my leg. One of these days I’ll add a first aid kit to my bar bag. A decision had to be made now. Do I feel OK? Can I get to Art Is In and have a delish pastry and wash away the pain and humiliation with a chai latte? I opted for deliciousness over disappointment, and we carried on. It wasn’t that far to the bakery, less than 7 km and I’d have a rest and clean myself up and maybe get some ice to stop the swelling that had already started.
The rest of the ride turned out fine, though my knee bugged me constantly. I finally managed to get in front of Boj and get her photo au velo,
and we stopped to take photos of the rock sculptures on the river. This was also partly because I wanted to walk the knee a bit more.
We arrived at Art Is In at roughly the same time as the rest of Ottawa, but the line moved fast and my berliner and bottle of Harvey and Vern’s ginger beer were in my hands faster than a cyclist with a sore knee.
The bottle substituted poorly for an ice pack, but I made do.
After the imbibation I tidied my leg up and then we set off back up the O-Train path and onward to home. I didn’t make it. It turned out that I’d hurt my arm in the fall as well, and I had trouble holding on to the handlebars. That, coupled with my leg problems, sent me off to the transitway, where I had to deal with the dreaded rack and roll that I whined about recently. I managed to get a rack spot with the first bus that came (unlike the poor sap going the other way who had two buses pass him by because of full racks), but I was convinced the bike would roll off on one of the high-speed, tight turns the driver seemed intent on taking. It made it, however, and so did I, though I still had another 2 km from the bus stop to push through.
BTW: an Alanis level of irony occurred on the ride. Boj bought me bar tape as a stocking stuffer last year, and I had been going on and on quite tediously about all its merits. I didn’t damage the bike at all other than — yup — the bar tape. Sigh. At least Boj knows what to get me as a stocking stuffer this year…
ed: My phone came out of this undamaged, surprisingly, though my totally kawaii Sailor Moon case is bustamacated. Boo. But so is my knee, so double boo.