Not good doesn't really begin to describe it. Oh, in fairness, it could have been MUCH worse. But honestly - I don't know if it was me or just a bad day. As others have mentioned, the weather wasn't bad -- overcast/ cloudy, but no rain. Not too warm, but still fine in shorts. A recipe for what should have been a fine day.

Unfortunately, incident #1 was pretty much all me. I have to 'merge' (really a right/left transition) each day from the towpath to the Capital Crescent trail. I was running late this AM, so I was, I admit, in a bit of a hurry. I was watching the CCT from the towpath, to see if I was going to have to wait for traffic when I merged. It was looking pretty clear, but I wasn't accounting for a couple of faster moving road bikes who appeared after my last check. Worse, I wasn't thinking about the surface quality (gravel) of this transition. The final straw was my own indecision -- get out quick or stop... I think I tried to do both, with predictable results. Down I went, and worse, because of my momentum, I was sprawled across the CCT, so my main concern was getting out of the way. I'm sure I looked quite the fool. The good part of this was that I fell quite nicely, no injury to me (thanks, gloves) and my ride appeared to be completely unscathed. Some dust on my pannier.

Incident #2 was also preventable through smarter riding, though not 'my fault' -- the truck driver's inattention is not my responsibility, though I acknowledge that I must take charge of my own survival. I was on Water Street under the Whitehurst freeway, riding to the left hand side of the right lane, when a delivery truck decided to pull into the right lane without signaling or checking to see if it was clear, evidently. I was wearing high-vis yellow jacket, running front and rear blinkies, and generally doing my best to 'stand out'. What I could have done better, I suppose, was a) recognizing that he might come right (despite his lack of a signal) and/or b) taking the main lane instead of the right lane. I'm not sure if he heard my yelling, finally saw me, or just happened to stop, but I managed to get through it unscathed.

I will admit that after this second incident, I was thinking about taking metro home tonight. But the rest of the ride was uneventful, and I made pretty good time overall (about 13.5 MPH avg. speed)