I dropped the bicycle off at the shop today, and they gave me an estimate for repairs. The rear wheel is all busted up, and that particular brand can only be bought as a set. The crank is messed up, I’ll need a new bottom bracket to fit the new crank, and the rear rack is bent.
Total estimate: $578.
I got hit by a car.
Ok, that’s out of the way. Friends and family, please calm down. I am not seriously injured, and I will attempt to answer the questions now burning in your minds forthwith.
As you can probably understand, I generally try to stay off of Roswell Road, but sometimes it’s just so damned convenient that the temptation is too great. I don’t think it’s a bad road in the right frame of mind. Those freaking drainage grates are some serious hazards, but I can keep up with most traffic when traveling south from north of 285, so I have no qualms about taking it in light traffic and riding in the middle of the lane. I learned my expensive lesson, and I don’t mess with those grates. Those things are bad news.
So I was riding home tonight, and I took Roswell Road. It was late and dark, so I thought this the best decision. My alternate route, winding around through Sandy Spring Circle and that terrifying downhill run on super-narrow Lake Forrest or whatever it’s called, besides being longer, I thought would be more dangerous in these conditions; it’s poorly lit and has that longish stretch down a crowded two-lane road. Roswell Road has lots of light and lots of lanes, so I take that, I get home quickly, I don’t get run over and everything’s copacetic. That was the plan. I actually had a bad experience on Mount Vernon earlier in the same ride—some douchebag in a gray Suburban tried the old pass-and-turn-right trick on top of me, and that used up all of my swearing. Wide Roswell Road looked pretty appealing.
I was cruising along Roswell Road around Hammond when some prick in a BMW (I don’t actually know if he’s a prick, but he does drive a BMW and he did hit me) turned into the Whole Foods parking lot. That’s great and all—Whole Foods isn’t really my thing as I’ve mentioned before, but if that’s what you like then go for it, man—but he apparently didn’t look very hard, or else he would have seen my headlight coming along down the road. Seriously dude, I was wearing a safety orange shirt, riding along a well lit stretch of road and had a big white light on my front. I understand that I should view every event as my fault in the interests of my own survival, but I’m not sure how I could have handled this one better other than having an intense distrust of any cars in the turn lane. I thought he had stopped, so I didn’t have time to brake when it became clear that he hadn’t, and dude hit my rear wheel. I went tumbling out into the road, hit quite gracefully (no scrapes!), and, still moving with my downhill momentum, rolled over (breaking that stupid blinking light on my belt) onto the sidewalk. This was where I found that I couldn’t walk.
The BMW pulled into the parking lot and got out of his car, and two people nearby also stopped to help. One was a man dressed in a suit who looked kind of lawyerish. I thought maybe he was an ambulance chaser or something just based on his clothes, but he didn’t offer me a business card or anything, so I suppose not. Maybe he just likes to dress fancy. The other part in this scene was played by a nice young woman who asked all the questions you’re supposed to ask when you find someone lying in the road and offered me a cigarette. Mr. Fancy Pants called 911, Ms. Nice Lady tried to comfort me and ensure I wasn’t in any immediate danger, and I was fuming and cursing and discovering, as well as demonstrating, that I couldn’t put any weight on my right foot. The car came at me from the left side, so I guess I messed up my foot on the way down. I’ve been keeping the clip on that foot (my non-chocolate foot) tighter lately, so I probably gave it a good twist. Meanwhile, Mr. Prick got me an ice pack and tried to figure out what was going on. I don’t know why he had ice and ziplocks with him. He was dressed like he just came from the gym.
911 was slow to answer, but the police were very quick to respond. Yay incorporation? Senior Officer Joseph Simone arrived at the scene, took everyone’s information (Ms. Cigarettes was not a witness to the event, but Mr. Fancy Pants was and seemed delighted to repeat that I was keeping up with traffic), and very kindly waited with my bike while I went to the hospital in an ambulance and Sean (thanks again, Sean) came to pick it up. I hope he didn’t have to wait too long. I think I’ll get him some kind of gift card after I regain some more mobility.
The experience with the paramedics was a little bit weird. An ambulance showed up at about the same as the Sandy Springs Fire & Rescue truck, and the EMTs shooed the first responders away after I answered a couple of questions and made it clear that I wasn’t about to die. Things were pretty casual after that. One EMT wanted some kind of splint with a foot piece, but the other EMT said they didn’t have any like that, so they mangled something together with a piece of a foam-coated cardboard and a couple of ace bandages. It was up to me to awkwardly scrabble my way on and off of stretchers while someone held up my bum leg. I think one of the guys was a trainee. Portly experienced EMT dude stuck an IV thingy into me (after complimenting my nice veins) in case the hospital wanted to inject me with something (they didn’t), and trainee dude tried to insert the catheter. He didn’t do a very good job, so portly guy finished it up and gave trainee a lecture on catheters on the ride to the hospital. I was asked which hospital I wanted to go to. There were no sirens or flashing lights, we obeyed all of the traffic laws, and I was pushed into Northside as a casual code 3.
After signing my name to three four different forms (sorting out the insurance on this one is going to suck), I got x-rayed, waited around and wondered about what parts of the pain scale my foot was passing through, and eventually got examined by some doctor who poked me and prodded me and listened to my heart and did all of those doctory things. He started out the conversation by asking if I’d had any trouble with that foot before, which I thought was a bad sign. Turns out I broke my ankle. Maybe. A little bit. Doc wasn’t super-sure, but it looked like some kind of fracture and I have a splint and crutches just in case along with a scrip for some Vicodin which, if it’s the same stuff they gave me in the hospital, isn’t going to do a damn thing. I’m supposed to see an Orthopedist to get this all sorted out. My foot still hurts like hell, mostly around the heel, and crutches really suck. I have no idea how I’m going to get around anywhere.
Mobility is going to be hard. I’m taking off work tomorrow since I can’t drive very well or sit down for a long time (this entry is being written in multiple sittings, honest injun). I tried driving down to the mailboxes, but that didn’t go very well. It may have been because I had the parking brake on. I need to go the UPS center tomorrow to pick up a package before they send it back. This one is my external Seagate hard drive that decided to fail about three months into its five-year warranty, and I waited until now because I bought some new shaving supplies again (an alum block and some Proraso cream, which is super-nice), but UPS left those latter two at my door instead of leaving more notices. I might just call a cab. I hope I can get some sleep.
I broke another light today. Boring, I know, but I thought the circumstances were funny.
The state of Georgia requires, sensibly, that I use a white light visible from 300 feet in front of my bike or something like that when I ride at night. Summer doesn’t have me riding home in the dark much anymore, but who knows when I might do something different or stupid. I’ve gone through a handful of lights, which I believe I’ve chronicled here. My problem has always been the mount: I’ll hit a bump and the light will go flying off my handlebars and never work again. The last one I had was pretty nice in this regard: the mount seemed to hold the light much better (I was never afraid to leave it on when I rode the bus), and the light itself was pretty tough. I dropped it on the pavement a few times with no troubles other than a few scratches.
My last light was a Blackburn Quadsomething. It had four LEDs, the aforementioned sweet mount (with swivelling action and kung-fu grip), a waterproof seal and a nice battery life. That part about the sweet mount? The mount actually kind of sucks. It has a more solid grip than things I’ve used before once the light is actually in there, but it’s hard to get it in there good, and it’s hard to tell whether it is in there good until I hit a bump and it goes flying. I took the light off this weekend to clean the bike, and I did not put it back on good. It came flying off on Mansell this morning while I was trying to dodge cars passing me to turn right and looking for enough of a gap to cut across traffic and turn left, and I think it survived the impact. Then the Hummer behind me ran over it. There’s no obvious damage, other than a scuffed and now slightly cracked case, but it won’t turn on anymore.
I decided to spend the extra couple of bucks this time and bought a Cateye EL-5something. It’s supposed to be pretty nice. And when it’s all the way in the handlebar mount, it clicks.
Wow, it’s been three weeks since I last made a bicycle post. Let’s do one of those.
(I would first like to apologize for the title. Using song lyrics or any phrase that happens to pop into my head from three degrees away from the topic is a bad habit of mine, I know it’s confusing, and I apologize. I’m trying to evoke a sense of the sound of gunfire.)
I’ve had some people suggest to me that I get tubeless tires. My boss has long been extolling their virtues, though not very successfully (the sole argument is usually that tubeless tires don’t need tubes), and more recently someone at work, who, though car inspections pay his bills, has a good deal of experience with bicycles, suggested them to me with some more attractive points. Traditional bicycle tires are, granted, kind of weird; they take a hollow circle of rubber, the sort of opened toroid with which any tire might begin, and then stuff some more rubber inside of it, a huge butyl doughnut, all hole and not at all delicious, making the tire itself not a container for pressurized air but rather a kind of shield, separating the more delicate pneumatic cushion from the world’s harsh terrains. You don’t see that sort of thing much in other types of tires. Is this an obsolete holdover from days past?
I guess tubes have the greater history of the two tire types, but they do have some advantages. Tubeless tires have less rolling resistance, are usually more resistant to puncture and can operate at lower pressures, but, for one, they’re more expensive. The main concern for me, though, is that you can’t easily fix a flat tubeless tire. If I get a flat on the road, I can just pull out the old tube, slap in a new one and, after five or six hours of inflating everything with that goofy little hand pump, I’m back on the road. I’m not even sure how one would fix a busted tubeless tire in an emergency. I assume it would involve some kind of patches. All I know is that I don’t want to mess with that junk while sitting on a curb. Once the tire is damaged, that’s pretty much it. These hard-soled shoes weren’t made for walkin’, but they’ll have to do.
My ignorance about bicycles is astounding. Despite bicycles being one of the seven simple machines, acts of maintenance are strange and difficult processes involving specialized tools and, in the case of fancy road bikes, tight tolerances. A year ago I didn’t even know how to change a tire. In an effort to reduce my dependence on bike shop service, I’ve been trying to acquire as much knowledge as I can—through books, the Internet and that one class I took at REI—but knowledge is not experience. Changing tubes is one of those actions that has a simple process but a lot of opportunity to screw up. One of the things I remember from that REI class was the three ways to blow out a tire. Each one means that you messed up, but two of them mean that you messed up real bad. Let’s review:
1) The first is the thing that’s not like the others; the damage to the tire is done beforehand, and there’s no earth-shattering kaboom, but the final product is the same: a rapid loss of pressure and a damaged tire. If there’s a hole in the tire where part of the tube can peek out, it’s eventually going to get punctured or just give up on its own, and you end up with a sound like letting the air out of a balloon and a sudden difficulty in pedaling. These aren’t actually too bad—you can usually patch the hole with a dollar bill—but it’s something to watch for.
2) This is the funny one. Pumping tires is hard, so some people get the idea to use the free air at QT. Bicycle tires have higher pressure than car tires, but much lower volume, so that couple of minutes you spend filling a flat on your Toyota becomes a few seconds and POW! At least there’s a pay phone nearby. Don’t fill your bike tires at a gas station.
3) This is the annoying one. When replacing a tube, it’s easy to stuff it into the tire such that, rather than being the perfect, pliant doughnut of its design, it becomes pinched against something: the rim, the tire or maybe a scrunched up piece of itself. It’s hard to catch these, and the tube won’t necessarily fail right away. Maybe it’ll take five minutes, maybe it’ll take a week, but eventually the pressure in all the wrong places will take its toll and BANG! there’s a new hole in the tire.
I have committed sin #3 exactly twice.
I’ve already written about my first time. That was my first attempt at changing a tube, and inexperience was my downfall. Since then I have learned a new careful technique, and I have had no trouble except with the usual hazards of the road. An extra minute or two of examination as everything falls into place back on the rims can save a lot of trouble later on, and I’ve learned the movements well enough that I can quickly replace a tube without fear of blowouts. Except today.
Earlier in the week I picked up a tiny puncture of the weaselly sort that doesn’t release a steady stream but can drain fifty pounds of pressure over the course of a day or so. After refilling the tire a few times and denying that I had a problem, I finally got out a bucket last night and found those tiny, intermittent bubbles. I think it was glass again, or maybe some grit came in through the old glass hole. Whatevs, I patched it up and put the tube back in. I got cocky. I gave the TV more attention than the tire, and this afternoon I was greeted with that sound I won’t soon forget. While my first blowout just put a hole in the sidewall that probably could have been fitted with some kind of patch, this time the sidewall actually tore away from the bead, leaving a strip of bare steel and a flap of rubber that refused to stay inside the rim. Crap. How am I going to get home? Walking sucks, but I can’t use this thing. Can I? Could I have been better prepared for my own mistakes? I’m not about to carry a spare tire with me everywhere. This blows.
I probably could have gotten another couple of miles out of the tire by switching it to the front. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a flat front tire, probably because it doesn’t carry much weight, but I think my brain subconsciously vetoed this idea. It would have been a lot of pumping. Instead I tried riding on the bad tire where it was, using much less pressure than I should to keep the bulge from looking too bad and sticking to coasting on the sidewalks instead of riding in the road. I didn’t make it very far. I made it home on foot and on bus after the tube deflated again, and I have at home everything I need to replace the tire, but I don’t feel great about having to learn a lesson twice.
There will be bike stuff at the end for all of you eagerly awaiting my latest transportation tales. I know I am.
I don’t really know much about cocktails. I suppose cocktails are a proud American tradition, which usually means it’s something that grabs my fancy and becomes a misguided obsession, but for any number of reasons I just haven’t frequently crossed paths with this particular style of drink. The main reason is probably that cocktails were commonly used as a way to cover up the taste of bathtub gin during Prohibition, and I usually prefer to taste whatever spirits I might drink. Cocktails seem to me like a world of girl drinks and silly shots, and I’m trying, in the name of history and living in the past, to change my opinion on that.
Since I don’t know what I’m doing, I decided to just take the International Bartenders Association official list and start at the beginning. It’s split into four sections: apéritifs, dessert drinks, big drinks, and things that people might actually order at a bar every once in a while. I began with the first list, on which the Americano, a blend of Campari and sweet vermouth, is the first item, and that was probably a bad idea. Both ingredients are Italian, Italians came up with the idea of combining the two, and Italians are apparently insane. Maybe my primitive tastes just aren’t sufficiently refined to appreciate all of those crazy herbs and whatnot, and the fancy script “Bitter” on the bottle of Campari probably should have been a warning, but I just was not ready for that taste. It did not make me hungry, either. As far as bitters go, I think that Angostura has the better idea: put it in a bottle smaller than the label and suggest drops instead of ounces. I just don’t know what to think at all of vermouth. I guess I’ll be revisiting that idea once I get some cocktail glasses and start experimenting with martinis.
Besides my limited glass selection, I’ve also found a void to be filled in my bar tools, allowing me to buy yet another item that has a very specific purpose. I don’t have a muddler. I’ve attempted old fashioneds—again because of history or whatever and the delightful idea that everyone these days is doing it wrong—using the butt-end of a wooden spoon, but that doesn’t seem as fun or effective as it could be. I suspect a muddler would at least see more use than the fixed-cup spanner I bought for the bike last week.
As as bike stuff, my fancy new slick tires came, and they seem pretty sweet. This pair is 23mm wide, 2 narrower than my last pair, which doesn’t make a whole lot of difference as far as riding but made them a little easier to get on the rims. And they tell the world that I don’t need cosmetic tread patterns, which obviously makes me a cool dude.
My new tools also arrived, so I removed the bottom bracket from the Trek. One thing that didn’t occur to me while looking up prices on ebay is that all of those bottom brackets are of the cartridge style, whereas mine is open bearing. The thing’s probably worthless, but hey, new tools. After that I got sick of working on the bike, so I didn’t do anything as far as removing other parts or figuring out how much they’re worth. Maybe I’ll start on that during the week.
Fixing a flat tire on a bicycle can be something of an art. Besides the mechanical aspect of removing the tire and replacing the tube, there’s a necessary investigation, lest the cause of the flat quickly repeat itself. Sometimes finding these causes on the road is difficult. The flat might have been from a tiny shard of glass lost in the pavement two miles back, and finding these tiny pin-pricks, even if just for the reassurance that the flat isn’t repeatable, takes a watchful eye, a sensitive ear listening above the roar of passing cars, and the patience to try to find that tiny rush of air against cheek or back of hand. And sometimes you find something like this sticking out of the side of the tire:
I should have just stayed in bed today. I got to Medical Center before realizing that I didn’t have my wallet, I was nearly run over by some jackass on the return trip who decided to pass me, turn right, and then try to turn around into my path again from the hospital parking lot, and once I actually got onto a bus, a supervisor decided to ride along, keeping that trip within 400’s oft-ignored and artificially lowered for the construction that has since moved several miles north speed limit of 55mph. And then I ran over that thing on Mt Vernon on the way home. I don’t even know what it is. A piece of a nail? Why is it so crooked? Why is there no point or head? I don’t know what it is, but it sure can mess a fellow up.
I had another road find today, one that didn’t destroy a tube. I came across a Nissan emblem in the middle of the road that looks like it came off of a car in a wreck. Apparently those things are made of plastic. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.
I don’t understand what the deal with these bicycle people is. It’s like it’s become popular to try to navigate these undulating hills and streets that haven’t been paved since Sherman using only two wheels and no engine. Of course, I was doing the cool thing before cool was cool, and, as I’ve been documenting here, I’m not quite right in the head. It seems like every day I see more bicycles on the road. I’ve even had to fight (to the death) a couple of times for space on the bus bike racks. Maybe those $3/gal gas prices are finally starting to push a bit at its seemingly inelastic demand.
I’ve been riding home lately from North Springs station instead of taking the train since I figure the extra distance will do me some good. Today, while huffing and puffing through the uphill section of Peachtree Dunwoody, some dude in a minivan pulled over and flagged me down. He did not have any candy. I didn’t even realize what he wanted at first: he pulled off into a gore where the road goes from two lanes to one, I thought he was turning around, and I was a little nervous that he was going to pull out in front of me. It turned out that he just wanted to know where I got my snazzy gear. He was mostly curious about the mirror, which I think makes him the first person to ask me about it that realized that it’s a mirror. I often wonder whether or not drivers can make out the mirror when they’re behind me. A lot of people need a backwards glance (I don’t actually look backwards, but turning my head sideways seems to get the message across) in order to find the courage to pass me, so I’ve always assumed it’s essentially invisible. It does look a little odd to see someone with an extra piece of plastic hanging off their face if you’re not familiar with it, which makes me wonder how the guy was able to buy a bike and not know where the buy the various silly accessories.
Nashbar had a sale and a free shipping deal recently, so I decided to take the opportunity to buy some new tires. My tires are starting to go square and the rear one especially is full of holes. I figure I got around 1000 miles out of this pair, and I don’t know if that’s average for bike tires or a consequence of me riding skinny things just shy of racing tires. The ones I bought don’t have folding beads, so I’m a little curious how they’re going to be shipped. While I was buying things, I got what I think are the remaining tools I need to disassemble my busted Trek. Maybe I’ll get around to selling the pieces off soon. I didn’t have a way to remove the bottom bracket, and this part appears to go for about $15-30 on ebay. The tools cost about $30. Eh.
Motivated by another flat tire on Sunday, I also bought a new pair of tire levers. I’ve been using those skinny blue ones, and wow, those things suck. It takes me a few minutes of frustrated prying and stabbing to get a tire off with those, so I decided to look at what else the world of tools had in store for me. I bought a pair of wide yellow levers that have a big scoop on one end and fancy hooks on the other to lock onto the spokes. I tried them out, and they’re really impressive. I didn’t know that removing a tire could be easy.
I decided to take another long bicycle ride today. I tried to apply some of the lessons learned from last time and did a few things differently:
Freaking eat something first. The last time I attempted this ride I rolled out of bed and onto the bike with only a pot of coffee in between. It turns out that black coffee isn’t as much the breakfast of champions as I may have hoped. Today I fixed myself a big plate of grits (I probably need carbs or something), an orange (don’t want no scurvy) and some bacon (delicious). I could have used some eggs or toast or some of those other things pictured in the “complete breakfast” on boxes of sugary cereal, but I didn’t have any of that stuff. Regardless, I suspect that the meal improved my performance a bit.
The roof is not on fire, but I still need some water. I got pretty thirsty on the last ride, but I do have a problem of capacity with regards to water. I decided to attempt to apply a lesson from Dune: the best place to carry water is inside you. I drank about a quart before starting, half-expecting to need to stop and pee in someone’s bushes halfway through, but instead I just sweat it all out in the first five minutes. Maybe I should get one of those bottle cages that attaches behind the saddle.
No errands. No trips to Blockbuster, no stops at grocery stores, and no bags or backpacks or other carrying devices. I stripped El Blue Demon down to just 18 pounds of rubber and aluminum and carbon fiber, leaving only my under-saddle bag, stuffed full with a patch kit, tire levers, spare tube, chain tool, my cell phone and I think an Allen wrench or two, to bail me out a variety of emergencies. I didn’t need any of it, thankfully, and it was really nice to let my road bike handle like a road bike. I did leave the rack on, but it’s reasonably light and a pain to remove.
Start earlier. I really only wanted to do this earlier so I’d have some daylight left after the ride to do some other stuff. For me “early” is “before noon” (I guess that coffee I mentioned earlier was more a lunch of champions), so putting my ride between 11 and 2 probably wasn’t the greatest idea. Did you know it’s 87° today?
When I checked the Green Tour website to plan my route, I noticed that they’ve made a couple of changes. The “Intermediate” portion of the route that loops through the Long Island Creek area removed all that twisting and turning around Long Island Dr and the surrounding roads, instead starting the route with a straight shot down Mt. Vernon. Apparently they felt that the extra-gnarly hills in that area were a bit too much. There’s also an extra bit of course: whereas last time they described a 30mi “Advanced” course and a 60mi double-advanced (or something like that) that was really just regular-advanced twice, this time there is a ~15mi extension that continues south on Glenridge at the end of the Dunwoody loop and crosses the southern edge of Sandy Springs before continuing back north on Mt. Vernon. They say the route is still being finalized, and I suspect one reason for that is that the roads they specify don’t actually connect. I stuck with the 30mi course.
I rode the route in order this time, except for the part where I turned the wrong way on Northside and ended up taking the Riverview counterclockwise. Eh. I felt like I was doing pretty good this time around. Maybe the removal of the extra hills helped, or maybe going the correct direction through Long Island and Powers Ferry and all that results in fewer steep climbs. I ended up finishing the first of my two bottles of water somewhere on Dunwoody Club Dr, and I was still going pretty good. I gave a moment’s thought to continuing along the extra-advanced course, maybe stopping at that park on Hammond to get more water, but that idea was thoroughly crushed by the time I got back to Glenridge. Just north of Abernathy, a little after Glenridge turns right into itself, there’s a somewhat steep hill, and when I got to the foot of that I just couldn’t go any farther. My knees where aching, my legs were sore, and each new stroke took more and more of my waning will to complete. I probably would have made up some nuclear secrets right there and sold them to al-Qaeda if I thought it would get me a cold glass of water and a soft bed. I pulled over and lied down for a while around the same spot as the 3:40 break on last ride’s map. This was my first non-traffic stop after a little over two hours of riding, so that’s probably not too bad.
In all, the ride was 32.5mi, and I completed it with an average speed of 13mph or so. I did notice a lot of other cyclists today, maybe because it’s more into race season now or maybe because I was sticking more to the path, and man do those people piss me off. I have a different mindset from these people, and I realize that: I don’t have the lycra shorts or the fancy jersies or anything, and I realize that biking in a hawaiian shirt and jeans means that I’m carrying about five pounds of sweat around with me, but it’s comfortable enough and doesn’t make me look like a complete tool. I’m not out here to win any races. So I’m not in a big hurry to begin with, and maybe the endorphins make me friendlier, but I feel it’s appropriate to acknowledge other bikers’ presence. Are we not all brothers and sisters in transportation? Ride on, and godspeed! And it wouldn’t kill you to nod or wave or shout “howdy” back when I do so for you, jerks. I hope their overpriced titanium spokes snap.
Car-driving Asian dude (as Simon noted in a comment, dude’s probably Filipino. Boy do I feel dumb.) called back. Apparently I did scratch up his car a little, but he doesn’t care. Apparently he used to bike a bit himself and is familiar with the sensation of hitting cars, and he just wanted to make sure I was alright. That seems nice, and I don’t have to go through the hassle of trying to figure out if I’m legally liable or need to pay for anything. Hooray.
Well, I hit a car today. This is my first. Do I now have some kind of newfound street cred? I don’t know. Maybe? It was my fault and I’m fine. I probably wouldn’t have hit the guy at all if I had bothered to adjust my brakes properly.
I decided to stop at the Publix on Hammond this evening, and the route I chose was to take Peachtree Dunwoody all the way south from North Springs station. It’s all goes downhill around Abernathy or so, so it’s not a bad ride. There was a lot of traffic on Hammond today, so I started zipping by on the right edge, bypassing cars and riding in blind spots and generally being what people hate about cyclists. Just before Hammond there are two right turns: one into an inn and a wider one into that horrible shopping center where the Publix is. Traffic was completely stopped, I was passing cars on the right about 50 yards north of the Publix turn, and some dude in a compact (Hyundai? I can’t remember) suddenly turned right to get to La Quinta Inn. I couldn’t swerve or brake quite quickly enough, so I ended up hitting the guy’s right rear quarter panel at five or ten mph. It wasn’t exactly graceful—I pulled my feet out of the clips and I think one hand touched the ground—but I was completely unharmed and my first reaction was to just keep going. The guy in the car reacted, however, as one is supposed to react in an accident; he got out in a panic, probably afraid that he ran over my leg or something. I assured him that I was uninjured, I did not need to go the hospital, and I tried to apologize for sneaking up on the right and hitting his car, all the while anxious to just leave the scene and get out of there. One thing that occurred to me afterward, after I calmed down a bit, is that I didn’t get a good luck at the car. I don’t know if I hit hard enough to dent the panel, and I feel like it’s my fault if I did. He gave me his business card, and I left a message for him on La Quinta’s voicemail, where he is apparently an Assistant General Manager. I wonder if he’ll call back.
One thing I did notice about the business card, since I think about inappropriate things, is that, while the guy looked pretty azn, he has a Spanish surname. Neat.