JRA

Just Riding Along. A fair number of good bike crash stories--and an absurd proportion of attempted warranty claims--start with the words, "I was just riding along". This phrase, once uttered, magically absolves the operator from any possible liability; it's the anti mea-culpa. As a result, within bike shops and corporate headquarters, where it has been conveniently shortened to "JRA", the phrase invariably and involuntarily triggers rolling of the eyes and a discounting by 58% of any assertions that follow.

So, like, last night? I was just riding along. Linda and I decided to try and catch one of the last 6:00 rides of the season and so rolled the six blocks to the Olympia Brewery. No dice; it was cold, daylight hours were growing short, and the leader was jetting his way to Interbike. Still, we had blinkie lights of our own and had managed to dislodge our children, each nursing raging colds, for a couple of hours. We decided to go climb Sapp Road hill in both directions before returning to Kleenex harvesting and social studies homework.

Alone, we rode past the Brewery and lined up to shoot the corner from Deschutes parkway onto Capital Boulevard. Riding in front of Linda, with a clean, dry road and no traffic ahead, I zipped to the center line on the short downhill that finishes Deschutes, cut at about 20 mph into the apex by the butcher's store there, and...was confused to find my head making HARD contact with the pavement.



My recollection is that I swung in on a picture-perfect downhill corner line, heard a ping, felt a split-second of vertigo, and then felt my helmet crunch and the impact shiver down my spine. The next part--very nearly the only other part--of my body to make contact with the road was my heels, this coming at the end of a limbs-extended somersault. I more-or-less sprung to my feet, in time to watch my bike richocet more than 30 feet down the road.



I had absolutely no clue what had just happened. Linda didn't bump me. My tires never slid. I wasn't hit by a car, and I hadn't hit a pothole. I took stock of my body, as one does, and went to retrieve my bike. As one does. This time, not only to check it for the all-important damage, but to review it like CSI's investigators examine a discarded murder victim.



It was immediately clear that I wasn't riding home from this one. After five major crashes together, my long-suffering Hampsten Titano finally surrendered its Alpha Q Professional fork and a set of Record ergo shifters. The bar suffered only superficial scraping, but it would be positively foolhardy to ask it or the stem to tolerate any more action. And the wheel! My front wheel, a DT-based "Gruner" semi-aero clincher, built by Perfect Wheels in Seattle, had rotated its last mile. 12 of the 32 spokes were broken. Half were sheared off, an inch-and-a-half from the rim, while six had pulled out of the rim altogether. The rim was egg shaped, deeply cracked in two placed, and puckered badly at the valve stem and at nearly each spoke hole.



Remarkably, the rest of the bike appears unphased. (Mind you, the limited damage I did receive will cost about $1200 to put right.) Wondering why to spend more for a titanium frame than carbon, which is lighter? Consider that in all my crashes, this bike has bounced off the road probably 30 times and doesn't show a scratch. A carbon bike would likely have been trashed by any one of these adventures.



So what happened? I have a couple of theories. Linda believes she saw something kick up into my wheel, something that sheered enough spokes to elongate the rim, which then locked in the fork. I didn't see anything on the roadway, or find anything afterward, though, and physics suggest that that is unlikely.



Perhaps more likely is that a spoke failed under my (mildly) aggressive cornering and substantial weight, bridged across the fork blades, and caused the wreck. I'd already rebuilt the rear wheel about 18 months before because spokes were breaking the shoulders of their nipples and pulling out of the rim almost any time I'd sprint. Clearly, I should have replaced the front spokes and had the machining burs removed from the front rim at the same time. But whatever the cause, the damage is done.

Damage? Eight x-rays and six hours spent within the emergency room and my orthopedic surgeon's office catalog the carnage as a rebroken collarbone (originally broken this week last year, and since then separated or rebroken four times, this being the worst), a badly sprained ankle (the one I broke earlier this year), and a small break in the same ankle. More painful is my neck and back, and worst are the first two fingers of my left hand, which were jammed.

These are breaks 19 and 20 for the period from April 9, 2006 to September 23, 2008. I'm a bit of a spaz, sure, and a little too aggressive a bike handler at times, but I'd defy King Eddy himself to steer himself out of what happened to me last night. Twelve broken spokes represent some 32 inches traveled, or about 2/3 of a second. That's how much time and space was traversed before I was cracking the sweet bejuses out of my helmet. Sometimes, JRA happens.

I have a bird in spring...

[Click photos for larger images]


Say, look! Behind the Raleigh Sports! It's a little bird.

Hey, he has something in his beak!

...Um, where did he go?





Uh oh.

Oi!

From Velorution: Cat & Mouse in London

Mad Skillz

Props to these fixie pixies from the Emerald City. I'm not too proud to admit I'll never be able to handle a bike as well.

It's a Slippery Slope, Mr. Cyclist

Maybe you began riding, as I did, on a three-speed with fenders and chainguard. Somehow--maybe it was Breaking Away, maybe it was Greg Lemond or Lance, or a local crit--you saw a race bike and had that Mr. Toad-style ephiphany. Racing bicycles! People race them, and, and, they're beau-ti-ful! No fenders, skinny tires, clicky-clicky!





Then, over the course of many years, a lot of rides in showers and over unexpected gravel, and as your body grows less flexible, race bikes lose a little bit of their luster. But, what's this? Jan and Grant and Sheldon have just the answer! Old designs that are more forgiving and maybe even more beautiful than your race bike. A revolution begins.

So here we find ourselves again, riding with fenders, fat tires, lights, racks and bags. Sure, it's all so very comfortable, safe, and practical. Just like a pair Dockers, right? And how does it all end?



Like this?

A fixation too far?

I love bicycles. Correction: I lurrrvv bicycles. It may not be unfair to characterize this interest as an obsession; to be sure, I am sometimes embarassed (when around friends who are better balanced) about my worship of what is, after all, simply stuff. I'm profoundly grateful to the instrument that elevates me to a state of grace almost at will. But if I were no longer able to ride, I'd still admire the machines. I think they're among the most beautiful objects man has made in the last century.

All that said, is this taking things too far?

How about this?

Answers: 1) No. 2) Hmmm.

Who needs Thom's lazy eye?

Nothing whatsoever to do with bicycles, but then it's Thanksgiving, and we red-blooded Americans are stuffin' ourselves and looking at Youtube, just like the Pilgrims did. We're certainly not riding our damn bikes in the damn incessant rain. While doing my part, I stumbled across this astounding Bizzaro World video version of National Anthem, by the Greatest Band in the World. Enjoy...



This was apparently the runner-up in Central American MTV's "Make Your Own Radiohead Video" contest. Un Circunciso Y Dos No must have had some pull to convince the Queen to appear at 3:50. I can only guess that the contest winner went to Thom Yorke's house and filmed him as he caught, flayed, and ate whole a unicorn.