All In A Day's Work

Today was not my day. Rather than hitting the road, I should have gotten out of bed at my leisure this morning, had a bowl of cereal, walked over to the gym, and sat my ass on a spin bike for an hour. But no. When I woke up and spotted the sunshine outside, I just had to throw a leg over my bike, didn’t I? I just had to gear up and roll up toward the GWB and that’s exactly where the problems began.

When I left the apartment this morning, the temperature was maybe around 25 or 26 degrees and what does that mean other than it was cold? It means ice. It means goddam fucking ice which is exactly what my rear tire hit as I was rolling down the sidewalk about to make a right to take the ramp up toward the bridge.

I was lucky, though. Rather than slam on my side, I slammed on my side atop the four-foot concrete wall / divider, although it wasn’t that bad. I caught the top of the wall with my left hand, managed to keep my feet in the pedals, and also managed to keep my right hand on the brake which kept the bike from completely sliding out from under me.

It could have been worse. Had I caught the top of the wall with my chin, I would have did some serious damage although thanks to my lightning-like reflexes, all was fine.

Five minutes later, while making a hard left and then a hard right past one of the guards-in-a-box near the eastern side of the bridge path, I was about to take my hands off the brakes when WHAM! the bike slid out from under me. Half a second later, I was on the ground.

Considering how thin a layer of ice had covered the sidewalk on that particular stretch, I never noticed the damn ice. Immediately, the guard-in-the-box got out of her box and asked, “Are you all right?”

She didn’t seem too interested in telling me to slow down or be careful as I was riding up to the box and that is absolutely fucking bewildering. While I don’t exactly know what the guard-in-the-box’s job is, I would imagine part of it includes salting the patches of ice or at least putting out a few cones so cyclists, runners, and pedestrians know to be careful, but I guess that’s just too much to ask of one person, isn’t it?

Regardless, no major damage was done but going down on your side and almost going down on your side doesn’t really forebode well for the rest of the ride. While the route alone 9W was mostly quiet and uneventful (thank god), a chunk of snow did fall from atop a telephone pole and land directly in my lap with only a few miles to go as I was heading back toward the city.

That’s the kind of crap I really don’t need in my life, but I guess when you’re dumb enough to hit the road in icy, 25 degree temperatures, you sort of get what you deserve, don’t you?