THE LIFE OF RICKIE: I Want To Ride My Bicycle, I Want To Ride My Bike

I have been riding bikes for over 30 years now. And up until last night I can only recall having 2 really bad falls.

The first fall came the day that I switched from a small bike with training wheels, to a big bike without training wheels. The fact that I can remember it so well just goes to prove that I am still emotionally scarred from the experience. My brothers wanted to help me learn to ride without training wheels. So they put me on my red schwinn at the top of the driveway where my parents parked their cars. They gave me a good push and away I went. Unfortunately for me, they had me pointed right for a tree. In fact, if you are ever at my parent's house, I will point out which tree it was. I know I was crying after smashing face first into the tree. I am sure there was some blood. Maybe one of my brothers have a clearer memory of the incident and they can lend their two cents.

The second fall was a bit more dramatic. One of my dad's friends, Greg Reiss, was having a pig roast. I believe my dad was already over at Greg's and I decided to bike over to watch them get the pig ready to throw on the spit. I was biking down Highway 83 and I turned and looked over my left shoulder to see if there was a car behind me. But as I had my head turned I wasn't able to see the pothole coming up. The next thing I can recall was laying on the road looking up at the sky with my head laying on this lady's lap. My dad and a couple of my brothers were in the crowd hovering over me. Apparently when I hit that pothole, I flew over the handle bars and landed on my head. An ambulance was called and they loaded me up and took me to the hospital. There wasn't anything severely wrong with me and I was sent home with my dad. I spent the remainder of the day at home in bed and missed the pig roast.

Well last night at 36 years of age, I had another biking accident. I was biking from my house down to 6th Street and back. It is one of my normal training rides that I have been taking to get ready for the triathlon. I was headed down Canal Street and I passed this guy who was also biking. A couple blocks later, I took a look over my shoulder looking for traffic and noticed that this same guy had caught up to me and was drafting right behind me. I don't know why this bothered me, but it did, so I decided to put the hammer down so that he wasn't so close behind me. I approached a set of train tracks which cross the road at an angle that is more parallel to the road that perpendicular. I have some experience with bike accidents in my professional life, so I am cautious about biking hazards. As I approached the tracks I even swerved out towards the center of the road so that I cross the tracks more perpendicularly, but in reality I crossed the tracks at more of a 45 degree angle. I also had my hands and arms in on my profile bars, making me a little less stable than if I had my hands out on the regular handle bars. And you guessed it, my tire still stuck in the train tracks and I went flying. Before you ask me, no I wasn't wearing a helmet. I never do. I was also riding while listening to my MP3 player. The majority of the damage was done to my shoulder, hip and knee.

I am thankful that last night was on the colder side. Here is my warm up jacket. Without it, I really would have done a number on my shoulder.

Here is the raspberry I got on my leg. I will get another picture once it scabs up real nice.

Here are the scrapes on my shoulder. I am happy that my shoulder didn't pop out. I am actually surprised that it didn't. Oh and here is something that smarts. Get a little spray on deodorant in those craps, that will wakt you up in the morning.

I was really humming along when I fell. I would estimate that I was moving along at close to 20 miles an hour. Bascially I did the equivalent to jumping out of a car moving at that speed. Are you sure you don't want to do the triathlon with me? I was out downtown for work and stopped and took some pictures of the accident site.