bike-guy.com

Not so much when it happened but after. After I got to the office and when I got home that night. Oh and the next day, but mostly that night.

Riding my bike onto the office on Monday morning I was cruising along Fountain Ave. up to the light at Normandie. The cars were in line waiting for the light to turn green and I was riding up the right. All was normal when ALL OF A SUDDEN this MONSTER SUV pulled out right in front of me. I had no where to go and all I could see was the HUGE fucking side-view mirror.

And down I went. Honestly the rest is a blur. I do remember the guy stopping and caring about what happened and being a true gentleman. That assuaged any anger I might have had. I felt fine, no clothes were torn and the only issue with my bike were the handle bar a little out of whack and easily corrected.

So I told the driver I was OK and please, PLEASE watch for us cyclists before making moves like that. Thinking back I should have told him to drive a reasonable sized vehicle, but probably best I didn’t.

So I loaded the saddle bags back on the bike and checked my parts and all seemed in order so I limped along onward the next few miles to the office. When I got in I sat down and decompressed and checked out my injuries. All I could tell was that I had nice ‘strawberries’ on my left shoulder and right hip. No torn clothing and all I could see on my bike was torn handlebar tape. Not bad at all.

As the day wore on I got sore. Shoulder and hip and surprisingly my right wrist. No swelling or discoloration so I must have thrown out that hand to break my fall. By the evening and bedtime my wrist was the most painful part. But again no swelling or discoloration so I wasn’t concerned it was anything serious.

I took a couple of Tylenol PMs for the pain and went to bed and I was fine for a few hours and got some sleep, but around 1 am I was wide awake and couldn’t get back to sleep and ended up taking the dogs for a 1:30 am walk around the neighborhood. Rather pleasant actually.

Two days later and the wrist is good, the strawberries are purple and somehow there was another bruise I missed until the next morning. My big toe on my right foot. Oh well such are the adventures of an LA bike commuter.

I plan on taking the rest of this week to recover and then it’s back on the bike. Wish me luck!

-bikeguy