May 14, 2005
Man, I love my bike.
I’m talking about my bicycle. The one I pedal to work on from my home in Sapperton to our office in Gastown Monday to Friday.
Things just look different from the seat of a bike cruising down the road. You can travel through a community a thousand times in a car or in the bus, but if you haven’t seen it from a bike, I figure you haven’t really seen it.
I guess its true that sometimes riding a bike to work can be a pain in the butt (literally on some days). Like when you get a flat tire, or when it rains, or when you dump your bike. But even when bike riding sucks its still cool.
Just the other day I dumped my bike. It was pretty stupid. I was standing up on my pedals, speeding up to go up a hill, when my chain slipped off a ring, my right foot unclipped, I lost my balance and twisted the handle bars, and did a spectacular “pavement belly flop”.
For a bit I didn’t know what happened. My head had hit the road, but my helmet did its job. My ribs on one side did not feel good. I felt like road kill.
As I looked up at the clouds, flat on my back in the middle of the road, faces began to appear. They formed a circle in the sky. People, a whole bunch of people had stopped whatever they were doing to come over and help. They helped me off the road. Brushed me off. They hung out until they were sure I didn’t need an ambulance. One cyclist even rode along beside me just to make sure I was OK.
My ribs still hurt. But I learned something about my community – it’s a pretty cool place.
