Slippery slope

How often can you say, I'm glad that weekend's over?

This is what I found myself thinking Monday morning after a weekend that included a not-so-wise decision to go biking after a rainstorm last Friday afternoon. Coming from North Campus to the Medical Campus of the University, one has a choice of routes which include downhills of varying steepness taking you into the valley of Ann Arbor. That afternoon I went with my usual choice, Jones Drive, which whips you down in a hurry and has the added plus of little to no traffic. Unfortunately Jones terminates in a wicked 90-degree shank to the left at the bottom of its hill. You can see this devil-in-wool for yourself here. I probably should have known better, but I'd been cooped up all day and the feeling of wanderlust was strong.

As I came down the hill, there had been signs I should have been going slower. The brakes had been squeaky, and the steering felt a little unsteady. But the air felt good -- cool and moist -- and I even took my hands off the handlebars for a few seconds. As I approached the turn, I leaned in like I usually do. Most times the bike responds by giving me a centrifugal push back, but this time the push wasn't there. The tires began slipping out from under me, and my distance to the pavement started closing in a hurry.

My last remembrances before falling are the last-ditch adjustments I tried making: gripping the handbrakes more tightly, turning the steering left then right, trying to arc my torso outward, all of no use. My bike went flying into the bushes. I landed on my left side, but somehow in the roll my chest and right arm took the brunt. I felt the air get squeezed out of every alveolar sac. When everything came to a stop, I looked up and realized I was seeing everything from just inches off the road surface.

I lay there for a moment, feeling wet dirt and gravel through my clothes and on skin that was exposed. I pushed myself up and started checking for wounds. White skin had been pushed to the side on my right arm -- gashes of two or three inches apiece -- and I knew blood would soon be coming to the surface. Breathing didn't quite feel normal; it hurt a little, felt stressed. Nothing seemed to be broken, a good sign, though looking down, I saw that I had opened a gash in my pants. My helmet had stayed on, and my backpack was slung to one side.

By the time I retrieved my bike from the bushes, straigtened out the handlebars, and picked clumps of grass from out of the pedals and wheel spokes, my arm had started bleeding. The pain in my chest persisted, and still a little woozy from the experience, I asked myself questions in slow fashion, questions like should I go home and am I well enough to get there? I managed to bike up Jones Drive and get back to my apartment, cleaned off the wounds in my bathroom sink, and collapsed for the rest of the evening.

In the days since then, I've come to the conclusion that I've bruised something in my chest and possibly fractured my sternum. I was well enough the next day to bike to Ypsilanti, but I haven't been on Jones Drive again since the accident. It's the thought of being splayed out again on the pavement, I suppose, that keeps me away.

In other news, I found out that Money Magazine picked my hometown in Texas as the 19th best place to live in the United States (details here), even ahead of Ann Arbor which came in at #25. Whoa. I told my older brother about this, and he said, "I think they need to re-evaluate their criteria." But the survey's good enough for me -- I [heart] Texas.