Crash

March 31st, 2009

Well, it had to happen some time. Wasn’t expecting a catastrophic failure of the handlebars @ 20mph on the Embankment.

Left hand a sorry mess after grabbing onto the railings for dear life. Lesson to self, don’t trust handlebars over 5 years old. Turns out these ones were 20 years old.

The rail that I managed to get hold of instead of falling into traffic … the cyclist in this photo managing to stay vertical, unlike me.

Let’s get geeky … GPS logs … Notice the abrupt stop at the end of the graph, as well as the jump on the heart rate at exactly the same time …

Still bruising up, and a nice swell on it. It doesn’t show well here, but my hand is up to twice as big as normal, with plenty of bruising on the palm from grabbing the railing.

The question I often get asked is whether anyone stopped. Well, yes, but I had jumped up and was trying to rebuild my pride. I limped off to go catch a train. I did ask whether “it looked good”, but can’t remember the answer.

I have been asked a couple of times whether I was wearing a helmet. “I didn’t hit my head” is my stock answer. They presume I wasn’t wearing one, but that isn’t what I was saying!

Entry Filed under: Life General