I posted this in the Clydesdale forum, but I thought you folks might find it interesting as well. Has anyone here ever been caught off guard by a rude question, as I describe at the end of this post? I thought I'd left such treatment behind when I lost weight.

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Nearly 3000 miles logged in 2007 and my first accident in months takes place on a spinning bike. Here's how:

The weather in PA has been awful lately, and after logging a pathetic 20 mile week, I decided to go to the gym for my riding. I adjusted the spin bike as best as I could, donned my MS City to Shore VIP Cyclist kit and bike shoes, and waited for the class to start.

I'd adjusted the bike for saddle height, stem height, and distance between saddle and stem, but one change I couldn't make is extending the crank arms. If you look at the photo below, taken by "Bautieri" of Bike Forums at the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art:



...you will notice the horrible knock in my right knee. (Yeah, you may also notice I'm bent like a crescent roll and my rack is bigger than my bike's, but stay with me, folks.) My own bike is set up with extenders, but I don't have a set to spare.

For a half hour of the class I was able to keep up with the group, and handled standing on the pedals with ease, if not grace, but about 30 minutes into it I tried to put my right foot down, slipped off the edge of the pedal, and down went 250 pounds of Clydesdale. I wound up hitting the floor on the right, my left foot still clipped into the left pedal, and my right calf punctured in four spots by the right pedal. Aside from bleeding and bruising and muscle fatigue, I'm OK. My pride isn't.

Incidentally this class started on the wrong foot as well as ending on it. At the beginning, a woman I'd never met or seen before felt bold enough to come up and ask me "What's wrong with your back?" I mumbled something polite in response, but she managed to ruin my mood for the day. It's comforting to know that even after losing 140 pounds some folks are going to look at me and only see that something is "wrong."