Not really. But that's what the bright orange road signs that flanked the entrance ramp to 101 South said. I was driving home from my orthopedist's office, with a shoulder full of cortisone and a song in my heart! Or a dirge in my spleen. Something to that effect. All of which was the result of flipping my trike yesterday morning while being a bonehead. I was sleepy, and riding too fast, and my right brake wasn't behaving properly at all, so when I unnecessarily cut around a small group of pedestrians, I rolled the trike and slid into a curb.
I laugh when I think of how it must have looked to the observers. They didn't know I was there, and suddenly this odd contraption whips by them, too close, upends, skids into a curb with bright orange flags flying, and the yellow-jacketed pilot yells "Wow!" after the whole mess has come to a stop.
It was all I could think of to say. The speed with which I found myself on my side on the asphalt made Wow! the only response. Followed by, "I've never done that before." Which is true.
My largest chainring smacked into the curb, and folded over. I had to break chunks of it off with a wrench so that it wouldn't catch the chain, and rode home at the end of the day using the middle ring. I crunched up the left fender. I knocked the left wheel out of true, and there's something else going on as well, because the left disk rotor is rubbing against the brake calipers. I may have bent the axle a bit; it's hard to tell. I was planning to get new chainrings anyway, but not until early next year, and now I also have to fix whatever else I did.
I also landed on my shoulder, which was due for a checkup anyway because of a persistent rotator cuff ache that I've had since the Harvest ride in early October. After the crash I could barely raise the arm, so I figured I'd done some real damage to it. However, the exam showed that I didn't break or tear anything, and the previous ache was most likely due to tensing up against the atrocious road surface I rode over for the last two hours of the ride. So: x-rays and cortisone! No sign of mutant powers yet. The wounded trike sits in my living room with a broken chainring and a flat left front tire, which was the insult added to my injury at the very end of the ride home yesterday evening.
That's been my week so far. How are you?
I laugh when I think of how it must have looked to the observers. They didn't know I was there, and suddenly this odd contraption whips by them, too close, upends, skids into a curb with bright orange flags flying, and the yellow-jacketed pilot yells "Wow!" after the whole mess has come to a stop.
It was all I could think of to say. The speed with which I found myself on my side on the asphalt made Wow! the only response. Followed by, "I've never done that before." Which is true.
My largest chainring smacked into the curb, and folded over. I had to break chunks of it off with a wrench so that it wouldn't catch the chain, and rode home at the end of the day using the middle ring. I crunched up the left fender. I knocked the left wheel out of true, and there's something else going on as well, because the left disk rotor is rubbing against the brake calipers. I may have bent the axle a bit; it's hard to tell. I was planning to get new chainrings anyway, but not until early next year, and now I also have to fix whatever else I did.
I also landed on my shoulder, which was due for a checkup anyway because of a persistent rotator cuff ache that I've had since the Harvest ride in early October. After the crash I could barely raise the arm, so I figured I'd done some real damage to it. However, the exam showed that I didn't break or tear anything, and the previous ache was most likely due to tensing up against the atrocious road surface I rode over for the last two hours of the ride. So: x-rays and cortisone! No sign of mutant powers yet. The wounded trike sits in my living room with a broken chainring and a flat left front tire, which was the insult added to my injury at the very end of the ride home yesterday evening.
That's been my week so far. How are you?
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