Monday 18 April 2011

Ow, ow, ow - you bastard!

Had a little scrape tonight - all my own fault. A fast pack coagulated in Pyrmont at a set of lights, and I jumped on the back for a bit of action. As we hit the ramp onto the ANZAC bridge, a pedestrian stepped right out in front of me. The ramp has a big pole in the middle of it so that traffic keeps left - I had no option but to go the wrong way around the pole, and in doing so, I ended up leaning in all the wrong directions. Centripetal force did its thing, and I overbalanced and went sideways into the concrete barrier that lines the ramp.

Thank goodness it was a concrete barrier, rather than a fence with poles; and also that it was higher than my head at that point. I simply rubbed along it at a decent clip on my upper arm and the back of my hand until I regained my balance and took off again. I was going fast enough to take the back off the glove and to rip a nice hole in the sleeve of my jersey. They took most of the damage - I have a small abrasion on the back of one knuckle where the glove gave way and another on my arm. I look like I've been attacked by a small kitten with blunt claws.

I think I'll feel it in the morning though - I reckon I pulled a bunch of muscles as I fought to get off the wall. They'll stiffen up overnight, so getting out of bed could be nasty.

The whole thing was my fault - I was going too hard in order to try and maintain contact with the pack, so when the pedestrian stepped out, my options were severely limited. But it was also one of those days - I was riding quite shockingly before that little bit of rubbing (as they like to say in NASCAR). I was all over the place like a mad woman's breakfast. Riding hard when you're not riding well is not the smartest thing you can do on a Monday.

3 comments:

cav said...

Dickhead!

Why didn't you use your head?

Head butt the wall and keep going.

The council would have repaired the wall later.

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kae said...

Owch.
It's always the next day when it really hurtz.
Bark off is bad when you're over 30, too. Not nice ('cos it's been sooo long since you had bark off you forget how stingy and catchy and tight and burny it is), scraping off some bark.