This morning, riding on my way to work, I was stopped at a red light and this minivan pulls up next to me and I just hapened to have noticed it out of my peripheral. No biggie. Then the window on my side rolls down and the driver honks the horn. I hear a voice call out to me. I turned and the driver said,

“Hey how are you feeling? You’re better now?”

I looked for a second, then realised it was the woman who had stopped and called the ambulance for me when I got hit by the car weeks ago. She not only recognised me, but stopped to ask how I was doing!! I yelled out,

“HEY!! Hi!! Yes, I’m better!! Thank you so much…..”

She honked again then pulled off. I was stunned. I just couldn’t believe it. I got to see her again and thank her especially after my posting here in which I hoped that I could thank her even aside from thanking her in my post, sending out my gratitude into the universe.

Sometimes I am absolutely amazed at how life works out sometmes.

You know, every time I say that, I feel like I’m cussing myself, because, yes, I AM a driver. Although not as bad as the others on the road. (Dont’ we all think that?) However, I came up with a good idea–I think–for people getting and renewing their driver’s licenses.

Put them on a bike for about two to four weeks on the road.

Think about it. If drivers became cyclists, I think not only would they learn just how badly they treat us, but they might, just might be more cognizant of us on the road when we share it.

Take for example this morning when I rode into work. This one driver was on my left, I was in the bike lane which was on the right. I am going at a pace right alongside him, and he speeds up to try to make a right turn. He nearly had me roll right into the right side of his car, thus causing yet another collision between me and hardened steel on four wheels. Asshole!! Now if I give him the benefit of the doubt and he has his blinker on, I can’t see it alongside him on the right. And just so, what is the harm in giving me the two seconds you’d give to a pedestrian to let me pass? Really, what is the problem?!?! Why do drivers feel they have such an entitlement to the road?

Or how about cars that double park in the bike lane? Which forces we riders to turn out into traffic in order to avoid the car sitting in the bike lane, which is oftentimes parked right under the black and white sign designating the bike lane for bikes only. Why is a car being steps from a doorway more important than my fragile body being forced into traffic? Why can’t the car turn down the sidestreet? God forbid they can’t sit and idle in front of whever building they’re sitting in front of. (And the last time I checked, idling engines are non green.) It’s almost laughable, but since my accident, I can’t laugh at it–I get angry and frustrated.

I think if I put that driver that almost turned into me today on a bike a put him in the same situation, he may think twice about turning without looking. Let that mofo try to reapply for his licence then. Or how about I email him a picture of the hole in my knee I got from being hit by a car, then put him on a bike for a while, then let him renew his license…

I can’t get over how drivers talk on their cell phones, eat, gab with their frinds in the car, or just plain are ridiculously retarded enough to make a right turn while looking left or vice versa. I have seen it with mine own eyes!! I know that the next bad thing that may happen to me (if I so choose to let it) is that I get into yet another twist with a car and I go after the car with my chain and lock. I’d break every window and light on the car to teach the driver and every other driver that saw it a lesson: that we bikers will not be intimidated and we have just as much a right to the road as they do!! However, like I said, the bad thing that would happen is either I get arrested for destroying private property or the driver just kicks my ass.

I wish I had an answer for making drivers treat us better (other than destroying thier precious cars with chain and lock), but I do not. I also think that it takes more than putting up those (super-awesome) signs that say “Share the Road”. I think my idea is good, as putting folks in actual situations teaches them more than having them sit in a five hour class watching a video in which Christopher Reeves is walking around talking about driver’s safety.

I just got an email form Bike New Yrok stating that the 5 Boro Bike tour is now sold out!! That’s awesome!!

Here is a post I wrote the other day on Yelp.

Radegast Hall & Biergarten

I finally made it out to this infamous biergarten out in Williamsburg and I must say I was impressed. The selections on tap are your usual good picks, but the bottles that they had…..OH!! I tried to be adventurous and found that everything I had picked was awesome. The menu items in which you receive service was not really my dig, but they had a variety of sausage picks. I went with the Kielbasa and boy was I stuffed!! The drawback is that you have to go up to the grill yourself to get the sausage fare, but really it’s well worth the stumble. I also noticed that the surrounding area outside was real bike friendly-i.e. many spots to lock up, including the scaffolding right across the street which provided unlimited poles to secure your ride. The waitress was friendly, the vibe was good (although I can’t possibly imagine why anybody brought their children there–the food isn’t really kid friendly) and the skylight was a really cool feature of the room in which I sat with the communal tables.

So I came across this post card in Recycle in which it states that you can win a road bike from Transportation Alternatives!!

What you have to do is to sign up for thier StreetBeat email newsletter at transalt.org/win. That seems to be it.

I of course have already signed up. Now I’m keeping my fingers crossed…..

So I got the brakes fixed on my sweet little Jake yesterday. I went back to Recycle-A-Bicycle in DUMBO. And as there is really no place to kill time as they fix your bike. I just stood there watching the mechanic work on my bike. I noticed that he cleaned the rims before adjusting and replacing the brakes. Novel idea!! I did not think of that in terms of having the brakes work more effectively, much less keeping Jake looking as close to new as he can look.

The brake pads in the back were changed, but not the front ones. He swore up and down again that the pads in the front were still good, but I gave him the look like just-change-them!! I explained the accident, and for some ungodly reason, he didn’t seem that phased about it. Really. Usually I get the look all the time: Awww!! Accident? You poor dear!! Does it still hurt? This guy was like, “Oh…..that sucks.” Yeah dude, it does suck, now change my pads!! They didn’t have another new pair to put in the front so all he did was adjust the tightness.

Which brings me to my next conundrum.

It seems there is some weird design flaw on the braking system vs. wheel equation. If the brakes are adjusted to the proper tension, you can’t get your quick release wheel off!! So I guess those that design the bikes don’t live in a city like, oh, I don’t know……NEW YORK, where you can turn your head for a nanosecond, and parts thereof or the entire bike itself is gone. So that just totally confirms it for me. I have to change the brakes often so that I can brake properly, but yet still keep the front brake tension loose enough to chain up my bike with the front wheel chained to the body. I bet there are other braking systems that could work for the cyclocross and I will look into that.

Also, remember I mentioned that my derailleur hanger was bent and I could not shift down to the bottom two gears? Well, first, I got Jake to shift down to the next to last gear. How? I hit this ginormous pothole on the street one day and dude, it fixed my derailleur!! I could then shift down to the next to last gear. I think that may be the first time a pothole has some usefulness!! So carry on I did, pedaling downhill on a gear that gave no resistance and I kept telling myself that I had to get it fixed. The problem is, I was told that I’d have to go back to the original store I purchased the bike in order to get the proper hanger. And my bike store is all the way down in Bay Ridge. I haven’t had much time to get all the way down there, although I really should to check out what’s new in the store. Anyway, so this morning when coming out of the elevator of my building, I looked down and saw how the mechanics knew to point out the derailleur hanger–it really did look bent. I don’t know why I didn’t notice before, but I noticed this morning. The mechanics at Recycle (two of them) told me that you can’t just simply bend it back to make it work again. But I know my baby. I looked at that hanger for a second or three, set the bike down, bent the hanger back out and when I got out onto the street….voila!! With a little patience, I could shift back down to my bottom gear!! Do I know my baby or do I know my baby? It’s as if Jake hath sprung from mine own body…..

Unfortunately the street that I power down in the morning is under construction, so I stayed on the sidewalk. I do not recommend riding on the sidewalk because of course, there are people walking, but also it’s kind of illegal here in the city. But I like to weave in and out of obstacles and since my brakes are spakin’ new, I rode on the sidewalk.

Also when you ride close to people and brush right past them, they have little mini heart attacks. I swear–try it if you don’t believe me. But only if you are a seasoned rider my dear….

I also wouldn’t recommend trying to bend back your own bent hanger. You could probably do worse damage if you don’t know what you’re doing. Not that I really do, but I had a feeling that it might work and I went with my instinct.

I am glad that I have this running record of the work that I am putting into maintaining Jake. But now I am starting to realise that maintaining a bike you ride every day takes as much maintenance as a car you drive every day. It’s all moving parts that need to keep moving. And they break down constantly. However, it is far less cheaper to maintain a bike than a car. But if you have a nice bike……

Here are the three--yes, THREE--bike shops that rent bicycles in Brooklyn. They are:

It is time for the fourth annual Tour de Brooklyn ride!!

In checking out the website (link in header) the preliminary information so far is that is on 25 May. Check in is at 8 am, line up at 9 and ride starts at 9:30. Much like the 5 Boro or the Tour de Bronx (which I have also done twice). The starting point is down in DUMBO at Water Street and New Dock Street. If I know the area at all, I think that it’s right near the lighthouse and Brookyln”s famous Grimaldi’s (best pizza anywhere).

Aside from that, there is not much else info on the website. There is a sign-up page which probably they mail all the info to interested riders.

I just registered!!

They just gave some simple instructions on what to bring, but still not much else going on on the site. Hmmm.

Well this time around, now that I have this blog, I have to take pictures, meet new people, get info on other rides and races…

I’m going to be a busy bee this May!!

Well kids, it’s been over a week since my last posting. Far be it from me to leave you hanging without having a good story to tell.

I got hit by a car.

Let’s go back to the beginning for a moment. The beginning of this story goes back beyond the day that I actually got hit. All the way back to the posting that I put here when I got my bike fixed and got the new lights I was so happy about. At that time, I knew my brakes were on the way out. I asked the guy who was fixing my bike to change my brake pads. He looked at them and told me that they were fine. He had me take a look at the pads and convinced me that there was still more than enough rubber to stop my one hundred fifty pound frame on a dime. I nodded, but was unconvinced. I don’t know why I didn’t even mention that when it rained I really felt unsafe with those brakes, as I kept rolling if I had to stop suddenly. If I stopped at a red light in the rain, I had to hit the brakes about fifty feet or more behind the corner to come to a stop at the crosswalk. God, why didn’t I say anything? Why didn’t I even just get the brakes changed before the accident?

So come back now to the morning of the accident. I was rolling down my usual route until I came to this part of the road in which the next block the traffic comes toward you head on. Which means that I had to make a left turn in order to get around the little triangular sidewalk in the middle of this road. I am almost flying down the road (trying to get to the office in time for my morning meeting) and take that left turn…..only to realise that the traffic going in my direction is backed up almost behind the light so I have to overcompensate the left turn I made. Which then brought me right into the path of a livery cab that was rolling to its stop at said light and we were headed right for each other. I hit my shitty brakes and knew I was going to roll right into the car. I believe that he knew that too, but failed to try to give me any room (as any cabbie in NYC would!!) nor tried to at least turn out of my path. We collided. I hit the front of the bumper and fell right over, kind of on top of my bike.

He never got out of the car, and not only that, WAITED until the light turned green and took off!! It was other drivers that looked at me and waited until I at least moved a muscle to ask if I was OK. (Usually when I do fall on my bike, I lay there for a second contemplating my fall. I guess it can be misconstrued as being seriously hurt.) I got up, more embarrassed than anything else, and stated I was fine. I dusted myself off and noticed a stinging in my knee. I walked over to the sidewalk, leaned my bike up against a railing and decided to take a look at the bruise that surely was already raging over my knee from the fall.

I rolled my pantleg up. No purple skin yet. I rolled it up more. Still no red, no black. I get just under the knee and…..

…..I saw the inside of my leg.

I screamed out, “OH MY GOD!!”

This woman who was initially one of the drivers that asked if I was OK actually waitied around for a second I guess to fully make sure I was OK. She heard my scream, leaned out of her wndow and said, “Stay right there!! Sit down on the bench. I’m calling you and ambulance!!” She then comes over and makes sure that I sit, because at this point I am totally freaking out. I was somewhere inbetween crying and hypervertilating, holding my knee in disbelief at what I saw. And in fact, after the first time I lifted that pant leg (which by the way wasn’t even torn), I never looked at the wound again. That is how traumatic it was for me. I still even get flashbacks about that moment and cringe and want to cry. (Even reliving that moment writing about it now has me almost in tears.) But I’d like to go out of my way to thank that woman who helped me. I’m sure there is no way in the world that she would read this, but I must put the good vibes out in the universe for her.

Anyway, believe it or not fellow cyclists, I waited all of five to ten minutes for that ambulance!! I thought I’d be sitting there forever, but no, I didn’t wait long at all. They came over to me and took me in the back and I explained what happened and they looked at my pantleg and saw it wasn’t cut, nor was there any blood (for some odd reason). I dropped my pants for the EMT and he was like, “Oh, I see!!”

Anyway, to cut this story that I could go on about for like three pages down to a relatively still interesting post, I get to the hospital and get twelve stiches in my knee–or rather it is just below the knee on the side, right into the fleshy part aside of the kneecap. I still am not sure why it didn’t bleed that much but in a way I wish it did, so I didn’t have to see firsthand my own glaring anatomy. Also the painkillers they gave me were fabulous!! I am not a fan of painkillers at ALL, but whatever it was they gave me, I was up and around that night, hanging out and showing off my latest bike injury. (Yeah, I show them off.)

What the doctors and I theorized what happened was that I caught my knee on my METAL bike pedal and tore the skin right open. Great. I just got those pedals…with the lights I was so happy about…

Anyway, besides showing off my injury to the cyber world, I’d like to state the moral of this story is that if you feel there is something on your nike that needs fixing, FIX IT. I don’t care if a bike mechanic with a degree from HArvard tells you otherwise, fix whatever it is that you feel you need to fix. Because in the end, you do not want to have a story like this one–cut and busted up, with flashbacks of the horror that was your knee. And flying on painkillers at work when you really need to focus.