Personal
Don’t be like me, ignoring it for weeks and procrastinating about getting it repaired. You’ll end up jumping up on the pedals to accelerate around a corner, suffer a major chain slip, lose the bike from under you and hit the road with a BIG thud.
Don’t end up with a skinned elbow and knee, and a bruise on your thigh the size of your outstretched hand. Trust me, it’s not pleasant.
Of course, Nick would just tell me to get it fixed, but that’s another project altogether. Which has commenced.
I ran in the inaugural Run for the Kids fun-run on Palm Sunday. I wasn’t sure if I would even start, as I had injured my hip two weeks before: I went to bed on the Saturday night feeling fine, but woke up on the Sunday morning and I could barely walk. Turns out I had somehow irritated my right hip joint, and the muscles around it had kicked in to protect it. In particular my rectus femoris was extremely tight. But with a few physio sessions over the following week with the amazing Steve Evans at the Alphington Sports Medicine Clinic, I was back running 3km the next Wednesday and 6km on Friday. The R4K was 14.7km over a spectacular course: over the Bolte Bridge, through the Domain Tunnel (which was very hot and humid) and through the City to the finish at the Childrens’ Hospital. I finished in 81m 39s, which really surprised me as I was expecting to run a lot slower. I honestly felt like I was running much slower than that – my average heart rate for the run was 157. I guess all the training is paying off.
This post was meant to be published on the 20th of November 2004. However, it took until today for the wheels of the legal system to finish grinding. The bus driver pled guilty to Overtaking when unsafe.
Great little metaphorical phrase, isn’t it? Google gives 205,000 results for “Hit by a bus”.
On Thursday, I was hit by a bus. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a member of the Metaphorical Bus Lines fleet. I had just set off on my ride to work, flying along after a nice downhill at about 50km/h, when a school bus that I’d overtaken three times in the last 2km decided to merge left. Into me. Somehow I managed not to get forced into the parked car whizzing by on my left, but I slid down the side of the bus, the bike went from under me, and I experienced stopping from high speed using my elbow, shoulder and back as brake pads. I got up to see the bus disappearing over the hill. Bastard didn’t even stop. Luckily another cyclist had seen it happen from behind me and took off after the bus after checking that I was OK.
I didn’t appear to have any broken bones, just plenty of grazes and dripping blood, and was soon surrounded by drivers checking to see if I was OK. As a commuter cyclist, my view of motorists tends to get a bit jaundiced – there are so many near misses by motorists who don’t even check before they turn. But I take it all back. Well, most of it. A lovely lady called the ambulance for me, which arrived within a couple of minutes. As did the police (more about that later – I wouldn’t want to prejudice an investigation. The other cyclist got the rego of the bus.) Anyhow, Bruce and Barry the Ambos checked me out, gave me some Penthane (wonderful stuff – they should sell it in pubs!) and took me to Royal Melbourne Hospital. The hospital staff x-rayed my back and neck – all clear – and then cleaned the gravel out of my wounds and sent me on my way.
So, I’ll just thank God I’m OK. It could have been a lot worse.
I think I’ll slow down a little now. Maybe try a few sidestreets.
If only we could get all the cars off the road, it’d be a lot safer… 🙂
Every year since 1997, I’ve shaved my head over the summer months.
When I first did it, I didn’t expect it to become a habit. I had long hair – mainly a reaction to being required to have short hair throughout school – but it was past its use-by date. I’d kept it tied back for the last few years, and I no longer had much of an emotional attachment to it. I’d sometimes contemplated the idea of shaving my head, and so decided that if I was going to get a real haircut, I might as well get a real haircut. I have a great photo of Deb’s hysterical reaction – laughter/tears/disbelief – when I returned home freshly shorn, in spite of the fact that I’d told her I was doing it.
To my surprise, I loved it. First, my “hair maintenance” overhead almost disappeared. Showers were now finished in two minutes. No time spent on doing my hair. Shaving took a little longer, of course. When it’s hot outside, it’s like having a fridge on your head. When you take your hat off (if you shave your head during an Australian summer, you’ll be wearing a hat), if there’s even a small breeze, the sweat on your head evaporates quickly, cooling it beautifully. Easier to apply sunscreen too – no hairline. You can also stick your head under a tap without needing a towel afterwards. And it almost goes without saying that you will never have a Bad Hair Day.
So now I begin shaving my head when we change over to Daylight Savings Time, and let it grow back when we change back to Standard Time. Winter is cold, so it’s nice to have an organic beanie.
