Doing Somersaults in Traffic

In trying out a new route for the commute by bike into work, I got lost. I ended up on a busy street with 8 directions of traffic in a rotary sort of situation. Not a good place for a bicyclist to be, especially during the morning rush hour. While looking far right over my shoulder, I hit a rock with my front wheel, which jumped the bike into the curb. The bike then decided it wanted to love the curb, and kept rubbing along it, all the while slowly falling over. It was a slow motion crash. I tried to pull the front wheel away, and tried to lean the opposite way of the curb. Alas, it wasn't to be, we were going down; the bike and I. I grabbed the brakes, and slowed the bike down as best I could. Then the pedal hit the curb, and the bike lurched over. I took my foot off the pedal, stepped into the grassy traffic island, and somersaulted over the handlebars--in slow motion. I landed on my feet, still holding onto the hand grips. and then promptly fell over backwards onto the island and bike.

## Aftermath

I then got up, brushed out the grass and dirt, checked out the bike, and was back on my way. All within a 30 second timespan. No one stopped, no one honked, and I'm glad I fell into the traffic island and not into the road in traffic. After about 5 minutes, the adrenaline rush wore off and my legs felt like rubber. I just powered through it and kept riding. The bike is fine, some new scratches, but all still works. I seemed to somehow survive with only grass stains. I'd love to learn how grass stains can make it through the shirt and pants and mark my skin. The Jandd bags look like nothing ever happened, still securely fastened to the bike rack, the contents not even jumbled.

I rode home another 27 km tonight without incident; other than some rain and colder temps. Tomorrow is another day, another 50+ km to work and back.

This was originally published at wiki.lewman.is