Part 4 - The Crash

wednesday, september 21st was a day to remember. like all of the other days of my vacation i woke via my internal alarm and not an external one. i didn't have any plans for this day so i decided to go into town and rent a couple of movies.

so that i could enjoy the fresh air and get a bit of exercise, i decided to ride my step dad's new mountain bike to the movie store. when i went to the shed to get the bike i notice that the handle bar looked funny, but i just chalked it up to innovative design. so i aired up the tires, put on my head phones that are hooked into my mp3 player, and headed up the drive and into town. while riding into town i discovered that the handle bar looked was loose and had rotated 90 degrees. thus accounting for it's "innovative" look.

i made it to the movie store just fine. after looking around in the tiny store i decided to rent the chronicles of riddick and another movie i can't remember the title of. i'm bad at remembering titles and names of actors. after renting the movies under my step dad's name i placed the movies in the fanny pack i was wearing and headed back to my mom's house. on the way home i rotated the handle bar back into a normal position, and only experienced a little bit of trouble from the looseness of the bar.

now let me set the stage for what comes next. my mom has a long driveway composed of both small and large rocks compressed into the ground by the vehicles that travel it on a daily basis. down the center of the drive is a grass path. the drive curves from the road down to her house and is quite steep. to minimize the bumpiness of the drive i road the bike on the grass in the middle. while going down hill i started to build up a lot of speed and the handle bar had slipped back into it's awkward position. the combination of the two had made me quite nervous so i decided to apply the brake. unfortunately i squeezed the left brake, aka the front wheel brake, to hard. the next thing i know i'm flying head first over the handle bar of the bike with the rear of the bike following my lead.


the left side of my body hit the hard rocky ground and i proceeded to slide and roll about ten feet until i hit the grass beside the drive. upon stopping i am in a sitting position. at this point my eyes are closed and i'm wheezing heavily from have the breath knocked out of me. i quickly proceed to lay down on the ground and assess the situation. so i open my eyes, i'm still wheezing, and proceed to move my arms, legs, back, and neck to see if anything is injured seriously. thankfully not. after a few my seconds, but what seemed a lot longer, i started to breath heavily without wheezing.

while laying in pain on the ground i notice that my head phones are still in my ears with music playing. thankfully my player was on my right arm and not my left. then i notice that i'm laying on top of the fanny pack that has my cell phone, wallet, and dvd rentals in it. so i start to wonder if either my phone or the dvds are broken, but i'm still in to much pain to care. after a couple of songs played through i started to get up off the ground. i then pick up the bike, which seems to be okay, sit on the seat and try to peddle. but the peddles won't move. so i get off the bike and look at the back wheel. the break had gotten jammed under the rim of the wheel. keeping it from being able to spin. i pick up the bike and put it over my shoulder and walk the last 100 yards down the drive to the shed.

after telling my mom what happened i washed up and went to look more closely at the bike. there were a couple of scratches on the handle bar, the brake was jammed under the back wheel, and the back wheel was slightly bent. the bend was so slight that i had to spin the wheel to notice it. i couldn't leave my step-dad's new bike in this condition so the next day i drove to a nearby town and bought a new back wheel and a tool to change out the gears. total bill $38.96. total injuries include scrapes on my left ankle, knee, hip, back, arm, shoulder, and right hand. sore back muscles for a couple of days, and 6 days later my side and shoulder still hurt. i have a feeling my should will hurt for at least another 10 days, but i least nothing is broken.