I’m still recovering, and have a ways to go.
It all started Friday, when some kid on a BMX came tearing across the mulched median that separates the newly renovated Ohlone Greenway path from a neighboring apartment building parking lot. I didn’t see him until way too late. I remember grabbing for the brake and probably slowed just a little before the front wheel of my bicycle clipped the rear wheel of his, and over the handlebars I went.
I picked myself up off the pavement, and tersely explained my feelings regarding the relative wisdom of his recent actions. “I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen someone do”, I said, which in retrospect is certainly an exaggeration. However, I didn’t feel that way at the time.
He rode off, and I pursued, making sure I got some video of our eventual conversation, neither of which (conversation or video) was to any purpose.
What pissed me off most was, I was planning to meet friends for a very long bike ride the next day. I slept poorly, waking again and again to plan and re-plan the coming day. Spend the day nursing my injuries? Go on a shorter ride? Wait until the afternoon to see how I felt?
For some reason (well, the usual reason) I was up sometime before 7. I felt OK. I’d already laid out all my gear and stuff I needed to take with me, and so only 20 minutes later I’d had some breakfast and was rolling off to BART.
It was a great day. Nine hours, 95 miles, 8,000 feet of climbing, across the Golden Gate Bridge, up and across Mt. Tamalpais, out the Fairfax-Bolinas Road to Fairfax, then to Nicasio, Point Reyes Station, Stinson Beach, back to Sausalito and across the bridge again. I got the agony on the climb up from Stinson, but a few minutes rest brought my legs back. I could feel my wrenched back and neck the whole day, and the bumps on the descents made my head ring, but I didn’t care. At about mile 90, on the way back through the Marina, I saw a fellow cyclist get hit by a cab. Right in front of me. He survived, probably with nothing broken, but it was an ugly thing to see.
The next morning I went to turn on my laptop. It had been in my satchel Friday night, of course, and when it booted up I saw it must have been underneath me when I landed. Maybe that’s why I barely had any bruises. One more laptop with a damaged screen (I’ve got a small pile of them) and the last couple files I was working on Friday… recoverable, but only after I figured out to use an HDMI cable to connect the broken laptop to the TV.
And I wasn’t going to miss some Sunday time with Zoe and Melanie, on bikes and Skuut out on the Bay Trail in Richmond.
So the week starts with a new laptop and all the connectivity and upgrade problems that come with a new version of Windows and MS Office.
And now I’m leaving for Buellton, where I’ve got a meeting in the morning.