Showing posts with label bicycle. Show all posts

My parents and brothers spent a long weekend at Casa Me, during which everything went crazier. I had a slightly belated birthday dinner at The Stinking Rose. We went hiking in Griffith Park, but we never reached the top due to an overheated, but still ornery, mini mutt. We went to Santa Monica Pier. And then we rounded things out with a day on Catalina Island, complete with a Segway tour.

Of course, the entire trip was peppered with visits to every fast food chain that doesn't exist on the other side of the Rockies. And just in case that wasn't healthy enough, the only exercise to be had was walking, or hiking, at our various destinations. After spending Wednesday afternoon recovering, we set out yesterday morning to teach the 17,000 extra calories a lesson, via the bike path.

Having previously only taken the bike paths on weekends, I must say this: there are fewer people on the paths during the week, but the quality of idiots skyrockets. I nearly ran over a particularly brain-dead dolt who stepped directly in front of my bike. Then there was the group of 30 teenagers just standing in the middle of the path and glaring at all the bikes that they were blocking. Can you say Stupidity Index Factor? But that was nothing compared to what happened next.

Washington Boulevard has bike lanes in both directions, making it one of the safer major streets in this area. Sadly, that does not take into account turning drivers that zone out and don't see the bicyclists in the aforementioned bike lanes. The reason I mention this is that Matt got pegged by a Prius making a left turn. The car hit his rear tire with a sickening crunch, while I was about 10 feet behind him! And I thought the mutts getting eaten by Eviltoby was scary, but that was nothing compared to seeing Matt get squished by a car!

I readily admit that I don't do well in crisis situations. My first thought was OH MY GOD! MUST SAVE MATT! But as I jumped off the bike, a little light in my head flashed a warning that I shouldn't leave my bike lying in the middle of the street. So I quickly kicked the kickstand and left it standing in the middle of the street instead. Much better.

I ran to Matt, who later told me that I screamed "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" louder than he EVER heard me scream before. He was obviously not happy, but there were none of the giant pools of blood my stupid brain had told me to expect. I helped lift the bike off of him and he started to get up. Then that same useless light in my head came back on to tell me that my bike shouldn't be in the middle of the street. So I ran back to my bike, moved it to the curb, and ran back to Matt.

One witness claimed to have seen Matt hit his head, but his head didn't hurt and there wasn't even dirt on his shiny helmet. With his head apparently okay and no broken bones jutting out through his skin, Matt was silently declared to be safely mobile. We dragged his bike onto the sidewalk, where the Prius driver joined us in making sure Matt wasn't permanently disabled. The back of his right leg was scrapped up and bleeding in a pattern oddly reminiscent of gears, but aside from that, no damage.

Matt's shiny new Roubaix Elite was another story. The rear wheel was dangling, held on only by the derailer. The derailer was in the throws of death and seriously considering dropping the wheel. The rear brake had no stopping power in its near future. As for the frame, carbon is rather ornery. To the naked eye, the frame looks okay, but it still must be examined, both inside and out, for structural damage.

Having assessed the level of Matt and bike damage, Matt and the driver exchanged information. Aside from the whole trying to kill Matt thing, she was a decent human being who admitted fault and offered to pay for the bike repairs and any medical bills.

We towed the bike back to the store for repairs/salvage. While the repair guy was surveying the damage, he asked what kind of car the ne'er-do-well was driving. That's when we made a shocking discovery: Priuses are by far the most common car responsible for the bike damage at the shop. In fact, the repair guy commented to another employee, "Another Prius..." to which the second guy just groaned and shook his head.

Just to be clear, aside from the superficial scrapes on his leg, Matt is fine. As for the bike, the estimate should be ready by Tuesday.

Matt and I take long bike rides on the weekend. They usually are restricted to daylight hours, but we tend to get distracted easily. And by we, I usually mean me. So just in case, we keep our spiffy headlights and taillights attached whenever we go out.

Yesterday played out like normal, ending with a stop at Soup Plantation for giant salads for dinner. Of course, we didn't want to immediately start biking again right after inhaling piles of lettuce, so we spent some time wandering a nearby sports store. About 25 feet from the bikes, Matt commented, "Our bikes are still there. And so are the helmets." To which I replied, "But our lights aren't." Some douche nozzle decided to steal our lights, including the brackets by which they were attached. As it was approaching sundown, we didn't have much time to plan our revenge, since we did not want to be out biking in the dark without lights.

I know that it isn't the end of the world, but I'm still rather upset. While the taillight brackets were merely clipped onto our seat bags, they require a surprising amount of effort to get off. So much effort, in fact, that they stayed on for the 200 mile drive to San Diego on the back of Matt's car after we couldn't remove them manually beforehand. As for the headlights, someone had to actually know what they were doing to get the brackets off our handlebars. The evil minion could have slid the lights from their brackets (front and back), but they took the brackets too! That's the part that pisses me off the most. The demonic spawn knew what it was doing and actively wanted lights for its own use, as opposed to some kids who just slid the lights out of the brackets.

Now that we have the "opportunity" to buy new lights, I'm looking for ones that actually lock. And hopefully exist. As for our helmets, we will continue to lock them to the bikes such that stealing them would require breaking the helmet into unusable pieces.

You extra super plus never forget if you are as klutzy as me, but I digress.

After years of pestering, I finally convinced Matt to get a bike. This might not seem like much of an achievement, but you have to take into account the fact that Matt hadn't owned any human-powered transportation devices since he was a wee little Matt. A lack of available bikes also means a lack of knowing how to successfully ride a bike. As anyone who ever bought an adult-sized bike knows, trying out various bikes is absolutely necessary.

I tried to teach Matt on my bike, but that plan was quickly scrapped after the second near miss involving a parked car. Plan B involved buying Matt a helmet and letting him try out all sorts of bikes at bike stores. Yes, he did look like an incompetent fool, and yes, I nearly fell over laughing. But by the time he found the perfect bike, he was able to ride with some semblance of competence. More importantly, he didn't fall and damage any of the bikes!

And so his shiny new accoutrement came to be.


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Egads! He's going to crash!


Oh, whew! Matt lives!


And there he goes, down the alley of dispair!

Hmm, I think his seat needs to be raised a bit more.