Ouch

Today was a long, hard ride and it didn’t rain!

I’m a bit sore and bruised from yesterday’s fall, in fact every bruise has a name.  There’s “Ram-into-the-Handlebars” bruise, “Pedal Banger” bruise, and “Assault from the Battery” bruise.  Plus a few “Gravel Gouges.”

When I was eight years old, I rode up, then down an off-limits hill and smacked into a parked car.  Don’t remember the hospital trip, nor Mom waking me up hourly per the doctor’s orders.  Did that stop me from riding bikes? No.

When I was almost 40, my boyfriend Larry and I were riding when I slipped into a washout.  My bike stopped, and I flipped over the handlebars.  Concussion number two, labeled a Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury.  I woke in the MRI machine and swore I’d been abducted by aliens.  The struggle to regain semi-normalcy took two years.

Fifteen years later while Larry taught at the college, I rode solo…50 to 60 miles daily.  It was so freeing and as a bonus, I could eat anything I wanted.

One night I dreamt the next bike accident would be my demise.  (Weird thing is, in the dream I was on the wrong side of the road along a fenced pasture, kind of like New Zealand roads.)

With too many things to accomplish, I stopped the solo bike rides ‘cold turkey.’  And yet, I fell cycling with Larry, and broke my thumb.

So, how many times have I fallen off my bike?  Yesterday brought the total to six.  And I’m still alive!

I got things to do.  Yes Siree.