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10-03-02, 08:15 AM
On the commute home last night, a jogger and her dog decided to play the "dance of Death" with my bicycle and I; her dog (not on a leash) decided to attack the space immediately in front of my bicycle tire, and rather than killing Fluffy out of spite, I veered off to the left. Our jogging friend decided that now was the time to test her bicycle-stopping skills, and practically jumped in front of me.
I had all of about a fraction of a second to hit the brakes, and slammed into her at a bad angle at about 20mph. Knocked her unconscious for a few minutes; she landed on the soft dirt about three feet away at the side of the trail. I managed to plow my right arm into the wonderfully hard asphalt of the road. To those of you that study martial arts, I pulled a single-side-breakfall, only I did it with the wrong side of my arm facing down. Methinks you can imagine the result (four years of training and I screw up a breakfall like that...pathetic).
According to the ER doctor, it's not broken, just "bruised", but I've broken this arm before, and it felt kind of like this -- driving to work was interesting today, because I own a stick-shift. I can manage shifts between first and fourth, but fifth and reverse have to be done with my left hand, as I can't actually apply enough pressure with my right. Fortunately, it looks like I can still type, which is good -- that's more-or-less what I do for a living, because if the job involved lifting anything heavier than my keys with my right hand, I'd be in trouble.
Lessons learned? Always have a bike-light (it was getting dark, and I didn't bring my light as I had intended to leave the office two hours earlier). That, and even yelling and screaming at someone to watch their dog and get out of the way will sometimes provoke no response (I gave quite a bit of audible warnings before the collision).
The jogger was unhurt; she came-to, and after about ten minutes of extreme disorientation, seemed okay, and her husband drove out to pick her up. I tried riding, but a roadbike on one arm really doesn't work for any extended period of time.
This has, of course, completely fscked my training schedule, and I'm trying to find something cardiovascular that I can do with my arm in such lousy shape -- methinks my only option is walking at this point in time, unless someone else has any better ideas...?
I had all of about a fraction of a second to hit the brakes, and slammed into her at a bad angle at about 20mph. Knocked her unconscious for a few minutes; she landed on the soft dirt about three feet away at the side of the trail. I managed to plow my right arm into the wonderfully hard asphalt of the road. To those of you that study martial arts, I pulled a single-side-breakfall, only I did it with the wrong side of my arm facing down. Methinks you can imagine the result (four years of training and I screw up a breakfall like that...pathetic).
According to the ER doctor, it's not broken, just "bruised", but I've broken this arm before, and it felt kind of like this -- driving to work was interesting today, because I own a stick-shift. I can manage shifts between first and fourth, but fifth and reverse have to be done with my left hand, as I can't actually apply enough pressure with my right. Fortunately, it looks like I can still type, which is good -- that's more-or-less what I do for a living, because if the job involved lifting anything heavier than my keys with my right hand, I'd be in trouble.
Lessons learned? Always have a bike-light (it was getting dark, and I didn't bring my light as I had intended to leave the office two hours earlier). That, and even yelling and screaming at someone to watch their dog and get out of the way will sometimes provoke no response (I gave quite a bit of audible warnings before the collision).
The jogger was unhurt; she came-to, and after about ten minutes of extreme disorientation, seemed okay, and her husband drove out to pick her up. I tried riding, but a roadbike on one arm really doesn't work for any extended period of time.
This has, of course, completely fscked my training schedule, and I'm trying to find something cardiovascular that I can do with my arm in such lousy shape -- methinks my only option is walking at this point in time, unless someone else has any better ideas...?