i've crashed 4x in nine months. one was when my apparently stripped hub failed enthusiastically as i was accelerating. i fell somehow. landed in garbage cans at the curb. another time i was doing a tight circle cause i saw a cigarette pack on the ground and wanted to see if there were any cigarettes in it, and i fell over and my knee was uncomfortably painful for several days. this summer i was knocked off my bike--the ol' bike land, SUV-turning-right phenomenon. and then this summer, a friend and i bumped into each other whilst riding. you know what i like about minor accidents? you get drivetrain marks in funny places and think, how the f.u.c.k. did i get a mark there?

then again, early in the spring, nonfixed, i did the going-down-hill-too-fast-and-turning-on-street-silt wipeout.

also experienced the pain that results from a lack of skin on one's palms