crash, bang, smash em up - smash up derby is not fun
Well it seems my luck finally ran out.
Last night as I was riding my bike home from work I got into a tussle with a pedestrian. Fortunately I was able to avoid hitting him but I was not able to avoid hurting myself. You see, I was putting off a very key part of bicycle maintenance until this weekend, because I've never done it before.
My rear brakes have been fading for a while, and despite an awful lot of regular maintenance over the past two months, I had never looked into how I could fix my brakes – so they remained soft . When J. Walker stepped into my path yesterday evening my game was over before it had begun.
I was forced to over brake with my front brakes, which launched me over the handlebars and skidded me across the payment at about 40 kph.
Suffice to say, I spent a fair amount of time in the emergency room yesterday evening. To make a long story short, I ended up with a severe case of road rash and a pretty decent fracture in my left arm. All in all, I think I was pretty lucky. I put on almost 3000 km on my bicycle over the last two years and this is been my first real deceleration test. Hopefully next time I pass with a better grade.
So for the next little while. I will be blogging using speech recognition software which seems to work pretty well. But gets my punctuation mixed up, because I'm always waiting 40 tool to get up to and saying. I purposely not edited this paragraph to get you a better sense of what actually comes over and talk over the next few weeks while my arm heals. I'm sure that my interface with this software will get better
See this post as it first appeared on Blogware.
9 comments
Comments are closed - these are kept exactly as they were left.
houseofwarwick, May 17, 2005
Sorry about the bad luck Ross. Take care...
Steve Kirks
Peter Ejtel, May 18, 2005
Wow Ross, when I saw you at the office today and you told me the story, I assumed this happened days ago.
To be in the office the next day like this is either A) shock, B) the painkillers, or C) an impressive example of great dedication... Way to go for showing most of us up for taking a sick day due to a 'widdle flu'!
Get better soon...
Entropy, May 18, 2005
Hi Ross,
In an emergency, all braking on a bicycle should be done with the front brake, the optimal braking situation is when the back wheel is just about to lift from the road, and thus exerts zero braking force.
Sheldon Brown has some good information
This information is a little too late to do much for you now, there's always a next time.
Brock
Rob D, May 18, 2005
man oh man....the reason I like riding in the forest better than the city...trees dont j-walk.
Rob D
Graeme, May 18, 2005
so what did j.walker do after you sacrificed limb (but thankfully not life) for him?
rick3528, May 18, 2005
Wicked dude.
Broken Bytes...by Ross Rader.
Sorry to hear the bad news
At least its a beautiful day and your legs are not broken. (knock on wood)
Get well soon.
Allyeggpop, May 19, 2005
Trust me its much more satisfying to hit the pedestrain. This done after yelling hollering etc. nothing was moving this @#$ teenager from my path. Course I decellerated from 40 prior to impact mostly to make my point and not to make it to emergency!
markjr, May 19, 2005
ouch! Take care Ross. Let me know if I can do anything.
jpiercy, May 24, 2005
Get well Ross
The Fireman ball cap is on its way , as of today
JP