cycle boy
about 2 hours ago i was hit by a van while riding my bicycle. i think i’m okay, but it’s pretty damned interesting that somebody could hit a cyclist and not stop. fucker slammed me hard on the back with his right mirror (metal, as i recall). if it hadn’t been the collapsing type, i might be dead. my shoulder and neck hurt and are starting to stiffen up, but i can’t detect any serious damage right now other than muscle pain. hope there are no tears or anything like that. bike is good. stayed up after the hit, which is hard to believe.
after a long period away from exercising, i finally got back on the bike in the last week, because my gut is embarrassing, and my energy has been down. my first long ride in a while today, and it ends with me surrounded by 10 emergency response people, lifting up my jersey and letting them see my huge and disgusting gut. so very proud. also got to sit in the back of a cop car (didn’t close the door), which anybody who visits here knows is a real thrill for me.
i didn’t get the van’s tag number all the way (had just been slammed, go figure), but somebody else did (thanks again, my friend!). told the cop i don’t want to press charges or anything, and i don’t want the driver arrested, but i want the unaccountable waste of DNA to call me so i can talk to it. we’ll see how that works out. and if it turns out my back or neck (which feels almost the worst right now, though it wasn’t hit) or something else is fucked up, then what fun that whole mess’ll be.
two cop cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck. all for me. so important, my life. signed a waiver (no money and no medical insurance) and all but the cops left, which made me feel better. the road was almost completely blocked. tell ya what — the response when they heard i’d been hit was damned fast compared to other interaction i’d had years ago, and with some indirect domestic shit that went on in my neighborhood. and it was kinda in the boonies too.
when i was riding away, i thought about how earlier today i’d thought of being hit, and had reminded myself the usual crap about riding smoothly, staying far to the right on 2-lane roads with no shoulder, blah blah blah. so easy to say afterward, “i had a premonition.” bullshit. i always think about getting hit. been riding road bikes since the early 90s, and this is my first automobile contact, though i’ve had a few crashes from wild animals and equipment failures.
very hot today. i’d stopped at this old cemetery to check it out and drink water (hadn’t ridden out that way in years). i usually never stop when i’m riding. as i was leaving, i thought about how funny it would be to have a scene in a movie where a guy walking by a cemetery gets hit by a car, flies through the air, and is impaled by a tombstone. about 2 minutes later i almost got my chance to be a funny headline, except the location was off, and the driver wasn’t quite as shitty as that would have required (but still pretty shitty).
don’t feel like doing tight 2-lane roads for a while. a guy i used to ride with was just killed by a car a couple of weeks ago on his bike. big thanks to all the stupid assholes out there who just have to get by you at 50 MPH, clipping the margin, or their day would be ruined.
and again, real thanks to the people who did give a shit. they will stay anonymous.
August 4th, 2005 at 20:10
Bummer. Glad you’re still walking around, but sounds like you’re gonna hurt for a while.
I never got hit during the many years I bicycled around Boston. Likely because I stayed away from highly-traveled roads. I DID have some problems on my motorcycle. Took a few right turns that weren’t in my plans to avoid being hit by the right-turning car on my right.
August 5th, 2005 at 10:31
Get the guy’s insurance company and start a claim. You may want some treatment, and his carrier should pay for it 100%.
August 5th, 2005 at 14:27
thanks, bill.
y’know, i can already hear the cop when i finally talk to him (left 2 vmails yesterday): “well, you said you didn’t want to press charges, so i just dropped it.”
the state doesn’t like deviation. still no word from the cop, and i called and spoke with 2 desk types today. been through this before when i was hit-and-run a couple years ago in my vehicle. nobody gives a shit about inanimate property, and just barely human property. the court case that time was a joke. these judges should be steam-rollered in their lazy, weak-brained, presumed superiority.
August 5th, 2005 at 22:58
Holy shit, brother, thank God that you are still on the good side of ground level. I would be so much more pissed than you seem to be. To hell with litigation, even, I’m thinking more in Biblical terms. I been riding at night lately with the benefit of cool temps and you can see car’s lights coming up behind you. Down side is, I like to ride out to the cemetary, too, but that shit is way overspooky at night. The original “Night of the Living Dead” ruined me on the hanging around cemetary’s at night and stuff. And these are some super skeery oldtime redneck civil war ass brain eaters I’m talking about….fhuck. that….I still ride to the cemetary because I have grande huevos, but it is a high speed pass.
…but I digress,
When you heal up, you should get off that nancy ass road bike of yours and get back to nature on a fat tire ride. Then you can wreck more and be okay with it, too.
I’m glad you’re okay.
zarigueya gorda