Theorem - you will eventually get into an accident...

I saved the title of this blog as a possible topic back in May. At that point it had been a long, long, time since I'd last been in a bike accident. I had known other people who'd been in accidents in the past couple years, but I had, perhaps miraculously, remained upright.

However, that changed last fall when I had not one, but two, mishaps on my bike while commuting. The first was largely my fault. While riding up Clark Street in Chicago (mid-October) I encountered a cab who was "stationed" several feet from the curb, completely blocking the bike lane. For some reason which I still don't understand I made the split-second decision to pass him on the right. Unfortunately, just as I was passing, the passenger opened her door. I strained my right AC joint when I went over the handlebars, but was not otherwise hurt. I missed a week of riding and swimming, but got on with my life.

On November 30 I crashed again. This time my chain decided it was mad at my hub and went on strike while I was accelerating out of the saddle after a stop. I hit nothing but the ground. Alas, my keys were in my back pocket and I landed squarely on what had been a round key ring. It is round no more. This took me a bit longer to recover from. I missed riding the entire month of December (partly from the crash, partly from the weather). I am only slowly getting back to the pool as well.

Introduction

I ride a bike. Not as far or as often as some people, but frequently, and farther than most. I don't consider myself a very good rider, at least based on how frequently I get passed, but I do ride a fairly nice bike, a 2006 Trek Madone 5.2. Which explains the title of the blog.

These days most of my riding is actually commuting from my home in Evanston to work in the Chicago Loop, about 25 miles round trip. Last year I rode through November then petered out when the weather got crappy in December and didn't really pick back up until March. This year I hope to ride through the winter. To that end I recently bought a Schwinn Madison on eBay as a bad weather beater. I like it well enough, though I must admit my knees are getting a bit old for all the starting from a dead stop required in the city. I think I need to find a slightly smaller chainring and suffer with lack of "top end".

I've been riding "ten speed" bikes of one sort or another since I was in college in Los Angeles. I've had a number of different bikes, including a nice early American Masi back in the 70s (made shortly after they moved from Italy), and nowadays can be seen bopping around Evanston on a Specialized Crossroads fitted with an Xtracyle longtail. I kind of wish I had the blender attachment. That would be cool at the beach on a hot day. While I used to have a mountain bike, off-road riding never appealed to me. I love the road, and I really like urban riding (more on that in later posts).

I started riding in LA, slacked off while in graduate school in Iowa, returned to it when I moved back to Northern California after graduation, then in upstate New York. I do miss not having hills here in the Midwest, but I love to ride. I love to swim as well, but that's a topic for another day.