i've been trying to get exercise, in the form of riding my blue 21-speed schwinn to the park and back twice a week. it's about a mile either way (~1.5 km), out of the neighborhood, down a busy four-lane street, then through another neighborhood to a park that, in the evenings, absolutely teems with little league baseball hustle and bustle. i take the streets through the neighborhoods, and the sidewalks along the big street (where the speed limit is 45 miles per hour, but people regularly do 60 and 70 mph). i have to cross three intersections on this busy street.
today, about two-thirds of the way back, i came to the second intersection when i had the green light going my way. there was a white sedan, piloted by a shaggy-headed teenager of maybe 16, at the intersection, waiting to turn right on red (for you across the pond, recall that we drive on the right side over here). as i approached, i saw that he had an opening coming up, but it didn't look that long and i wouldn't have taken it myself, so i started to cross (since i had the right of way).
i thought to myself, he's going to go, and he's not going to look. i should go behind him. but by the timing it looked like i would have enough time to go ahead in the crosswalk like i should.
and when i got in front of him, indeed, he gunned the engine, still looking off to the left, as the car he was waiting on cross the other side of the intersection. he looked up just as i crossed his centerline and jabbed the brake. the front bumper pushed my rear tire a bit, and i stumbled to avoid falling.
he made the "holy shit!" face and turned white, and i shot him an aggravated "you idiot" glance, and tried to go on forward.
...but my bike wouldn't move. i looked down, and the rear wheel was bent up like a pretzel. the tread gripped the pavement so well under my body weight that the tire wouldn't slide, and instead the wheel gave way.
i dragged it to the far side of the intersection to avoid getting run over, and looked back to see the kid, white as a sheet, blocking traffic on both streets, gawking at me, wondering what he should do.
annoyed with the whole thing, and not feeling like dealing with distraught teenagers, angry parents, cops, and insurance adjusters, i gave him the "i'm alright, get the fuck out of here" wave off and hoisted the disabled machine onto my shoulder.
i never realized how long that stretch of road was until i had to carry my bike on it. a bicycle is very unwieldy when the back wheel doesn't roll. while it's not particularly heavy, the various bits of the frame pinch into your arms and shoulders in a most uncomfortable way.
at the bottom of the hill (a good quarter mile), i found a pickup truck stopped in the intersection at the entrance to my neighborhood. some guy and his young son had seen me carrying the bike on my back, and stopped to offer me a ride. i graciously accepted, and rode the remaining few hundred yards in the back, signaling turns to him through the rear view mirror. didn't get his name; he dropped me off in front of the house and took off.
when i showed the crippled contraption to elysse, she got a very funny look on her face. "i had a feeling all of a sudden about twenty minutes ago that you were going to get into an accident. i was really afraid i was going to get a bad phone call." interestingly enough, the incident had happened about twenty minutes before.
June 29, 2004 9:47:30 PM EDT