Foolish rider + newly-rebuilt and tuned old Schwinn + 20-some mph + angled railroad tracks on Niagra = a lesson learned, lots of blood and gravel to pick out of oneself, some nice bruises, but, amazingly and thank God, no broken bones. I couldn't help it. It was the best ride ever up to that point. I was averaging 20mph into the wind. I'd passed an SUV whose driver gave me an impressed look. I'd almost bit it on some dirt on a turn, but recovered nicely. All this made me sure I could handle the tracks, not wanting to hurt my new record average speed for a ten mile ride. I was wrong. I ended up about five minutes from my bike. If I hadn't been unsure how bad I was hurt and embarassed as the dear old lady who watched me wipe out shouted in Spanish and hurried toward me to dotingly make sure I was all right, I would have measured it. I can't believe I didn't break anything or slide into glass (it's a mess in that area normally). I walked the bike to the Y, showered, tried to bandage my wounds, lifted a little, got my bike in riding shape, and then rode the half-mile to my LBS where they kindly helped me adjust some stuff and make sure it was safe to ride home. The older mechanic asked, "Angled tracks?" when I told him I'd been down the road and told me to clean up more because the scrapes still looked pretty nasty. All in all, it was still an amazing ride. To celebrate my brief moment of glory, I pushed hard on the last three miles home (though I couldn't quite hit twenty again, since my knee had somehow grown a softball). A little while later, I got called down to the hospital to visit a sick member. As I walked in, this man who had just had a heart attack insisted on knowing what in the world had happened to me