The moment I saw the back of the Toyota Tunndra, it was too late. There was no time to do anything but instinctively tuck a shoulder and endure the force of one’s body meeting steel at a healthy rate of speed. Kaboom. Then you collapse to the ground. You can’t breathe. Literally. You are in shock. You jump up and move to the sidewalk, trying to process unfamiliar sensations.
“Did I just shatter my collarbone? Is my knee ripped apart? Am I bleeding? $%^&#! Oh #$@%&*!”
These immediate thoughts fill your head. You don’t think about your road bike (my Focus Team 2.0) that has taken you many places this year without incident. It lies torqued and damaged on the asphalt. Motorists stop and rush to your side. “Do you want me to call an ambulance? Are you OK? Are you sure?” You stay on your feet and carefully shake your limbs. You keep moving to fight off inevitable stiffness. You press now-tender areas that are filling with blood to repair trauma. You hold your ground until six hours later, the true aftermath begins. You lie down. A few hours of sleep will be a bonus. A night of strange pains increase in intensity deep within body parts that smashed a truck’s tailgate like an aluminum can at a summer barbecue. But you’re lucky. You are really lucky. Enough to walk away. You keep close watch on things while applying ice and taking inventory. Kaboom. There’s the baseball-sized knot in the right quadricep. The soreness of the inner left calf muscle. The odd burning in your trapezoid. The telltale purple and red marks where your backside and rear flank said hello to a vehicle sitting right in the middle of a bike lane. A bump behind your right ear. Your helmet cracked. Your sunglasses snapped in half. Parts of your cycling clothes tore through to the skin. Blood that ran down your left shin is gone. You couldn’t see the blood on your shoulder, but witnesses who pulled over confirmed was there. The wounds are dressed.
This is what happens when a disabled vehicle (out of fuel with its owner in search of gasoline) is blocking the bike lane, as well as part of the #2 lane closest to your left side, and there’s nowhere to go immediately after a descent and right turn through a green signal. Green means go. Red means stop. The blink of an eye, a surreal place. You can’t prepare for it. Kaboom. When you look back, you’re thankful it wasn’t a landscaper’s truck with sharp tools hanging over the top of the tailgate. You have a sense of gratitude that you are in one piece. You try to make sense of why this happened, but it’s no use. Then you slowly begin to make peace. You’re in a world where you can’t beat a 4,000 pound piece of machinery. You take a hot shower, reach for more bags of crushed ice, take two aspirin and hug your daughters. The worst, you trust, is behind you.
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