Free again

I worked through the Labor Day holiday weekend, and have been free for the past three weeks. I quit a bit sooner than I had intended, because soon after I started work I received a summons for jury duty. The store managers said they couldn't schedule around a possible absence on short notice every day for a week (though retail employers typically reserve the right to change schedules on short notice . . . but that's a rant on another subject). Anyhow, they gave me a week of leave, and then it didn't really make sense for me to come back to work for such a short time, so I'm done.

It would have been good to get a few more weeks of pay, but the job was wearing me out. After my first week I started having muscle spasms in my legs at night, which made me wake up gasping and yelling in pain a couple of times. I got in the habit of popping two ibuprofen every night at bedtime, and went to sleep with a cold-pack on my back. After two nights working ten hour shifts, until midnight, I took four ibuprofen. I know everyone who works restaurant/retail jobs has back trouble and sore feet, but it was more than I could stand.

So I have been rehabilitating myself with yoga two or three times a week, and an "Active Seniors" strength training class. I was assuming "seniors" meant over fifty-five, but I am usually the youngest in the group, though not the most athletic, agile or strongest. We work out with small hand-held weights and resistance bands, plus a little cardio and stretching, which has been good for my knees, back, neck and shoulders. I was beginning to feel a bit over-stretched doing yoga, I needed to build a little more muscle.

And I'm getting out on my bike again, weather permitting. It is turning rainy again already, in between spells of perfect September weather. Yesterday I rode out to Birch Bay again, and wandered around some side roads out in farm country, a lovely cool, sunny, still day. Today it's windy and pouring rain.

The longest rides I've done this summer are only a little over forty miles - I put a cut-out saddle on the new Cannondale because I was getting kind of sore any time I rode more than about thirty miles. Now I'm good for longer distances more often. I haven't quite ridden 2000 miles so far this year - I used to ride 5000-6000 miles a year when I was commuting five days a week. But it's probably good to rest a bit while I figure out my course for the future. My places-to-go list keeps getting longer, not shorter.

The Tale of the Fate of My Univega

Hearing news reports about traffic problems on this Friday afternoon before the Labor Day holiday weekend reminded me of the afternoon more than ten years ago when my first bike, the trusty Schwinn Univega for which this blog is named, was wrecked in a slow-motion fender-bender encounter with a Ford Explorer.

I should probably, for accuracy's sake, check my dates here, but I'm too lazy so I'll just go from memory. As I recall, that was the summer of the build-up for the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan, and for months it had seemed to me that drivers were more aggressive than usual. When you ride around on a bicycle in close proximity to cars, you learn that they almost have a body-language like people do, and there was a "just don't cross me" attitude in their acceleration, deceleration and cornering during that time. (I've read that incidences of road-rage, domestic violence and other types of aggression increase during times of political or economic stress, so there probably is data to back me up, but again I'm too lazy to look for it.)

At that time I was working in a business center on Guide-Meridian near Bellis Fair Mall, on a stretch of street that has been rated the worst in the county for vehicle and pedestrian accidents. There is an I-5 overpass with entrances and exits just before the main entrance to the mall. The street is two lanes each way; the south-bound lanes on the mall side have no sidewalk, bike lane or shoulder, just a concrete barrier inches from the edge of the traffic lane. A cyclist on that side of the street would have to ride in the car-lane and cross the four-lane mall entrance, then a merge-lane freeway entrance, ride under the overpass, then cross a freeway exit. On the north-bound side there is a sidewalk broken by many driveways and entrances to strip-malls and small businesses on that side of the street, so there are a lot of cars trying to turn right off the busy street, as well as exiting from parking lots, trying to make right turns, or left turns across two lanes of traffic.

Under normal circumstances it's dangerous to ride on the street on the south-bound mall-side, but after a tense summer, on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, traffic was particularly crazy. When I headed home after work, I rode my Univega on the sidewalk, facing north-bound traffic. Technically, I was riding the wrong direction on the wrong side of the street, but this is legal when there is no safe, alternative bicycle route. There usually weren't many pedestrians on those two blocks, but there are so many driveways that I had to ride cautiously.

At a short but steep down-hill driveway exit between a restaurant and a bank, I encountered the fateful Ford, which was blocking the sidewalk while waiting to make a left turn across Meridian. It had dark tinted windows but I could see the silhouette of the woman driver turning her head left and right, looking for a break in traffic. I waited for a minute or two for her to get out of the way, but traffic was fast and heavy, coming off the freeway and turning from the Bellis Fair exit. After a while the stop-light on Meridian turned green and a large group of cars started toward us from the intersection; it would be some time before the new rush of cars would pass by. I figured the woman in the Explorer must have seen me after looking side to side so many times, so I decided to take a chance on riding around her front end. Unfortunately, just at that moment she also decided to take a chance on making it through a small gap in traffic.

It was a very slow-motion collision. She came forward a bit, stopped, then lurched forward again when I was in the street directly in front of the high, square hood of the Explorer, and I realized she wasn't going to stop again. The grill of the car hit my left hip, and I threw out my left arm, trying to press my hand on to any small finger-hold on the hood of the car. My bike fell to the right in the street as I clung to the hood with one hand, then the Univega's back wheel was ground slowly under the front end of the car, the front end of the bike curling upwards as the back end was crushed, scraping slowly and horribly against the pavement. The Ford stopped suddenly and I fell off into the street, clear of the bicycle.

I got up out of the traffic lane and stood trembling on the sidewalk, while the woman backed up into the driveway, then got out of her car and pulled my half-crushed bike out of the street. I had a shallow scrape on my right hand, and an aching, burning sensation over my left hip-joint. The woman kept saying I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm really sorry, over and over until I just wanted to tell her to shut up, she had stopped sounding sincere after the first time. A Bellingham police officer showed up and wrote me a warning citation for riding on the sidewalk (which he later admitted is not illegal). He never even asked the woman for a driver's license and proof of insurance, but he took a report and we exchanged contact information. He reluctantly gave me a ride home after I told him there was no one I could call for a ride. On the way he asked if I had any plans for the holiday weekend, and I said "Well, I was going to go for a long bike ride."

At home I made up cup of herb tea and sat in an armchair with my cat for comfort. My neck was getting a little stiff and I had a mild headache. Once when I glanced across the room at my wrecked bike leaning against the wall, my eyes suddenly welled up with tears though I hadn't been thinking or feeling anything in particular. Later I took photos of the large, dark purple lump that swelled up on my hip; my doctor said it was a deep bone bruise, which was tender for weeks and left a dimple that still shows.

I filed my own accident report, and called the woman who hit me. She said she had a friend who had an old Giant bike she would sell for $30. Later, after I found a used Schwinn for $120, I called her again and she said in a strict, motherly tone, "Then I will give you $50."

"That's damned cheap," I said, angry at her tone more than anything. I ended up writing a rant-letter to her, about how my bicycle was not a child's toy, but my only means of transportation, and I sent copies of the photos of my colorful bruised lump. That's all the satisfaction I ever got.