Owies

Mileage: 184
Days: 18
Remaining: 72
Average Daily Mileage: 10.2

I crashed yesterday. It was the most spectacular and injurious crash of my riding career.
The scene of the accident was Terry Hershey Park. I was returning from the Beltway, heading west. I passed a family group with a mom, dad, kids, dog. I slowed wayyyy down. Then I sped up, and ahead I saw a girl on a pivot skateboard. As I approached her, she went to the left side of the path and seemed to be steady as I twice said "rider", as I typically do when overtaking pedestrians. At the last millisecond before I passed her, she suddenly initiated a 180-degree turn. The next split second is seared into my brain: as she turned in front of me, she saw that someone was passed her and she jumped off the skateboard (or she fortuitously fell off at just the right moment). At the same time, I jerked the bike to the right to avoid her. I think what happened next is that my front wheel hopped up on the skateboard and, since I was leaning into a right turn/veer, the front wheel just rolled sideways away from me, like it was on ice. I hit the ground on my right side like a ton of bricks. Most of the damage was to my right forearm and hip. My arm bled a lot. The family I had passed belonged to the skateboard girl, and they were nice and insisted I go back to their house (on TH Park). The dad gave me a ride back to my car. I wasn't sure I'd be riding anytime soon, but today I went out for a 15 mile ride. Any day now, barring accidents, etc., I should be up to my 11 miles per day goal. Finally.

In other news, my office move day arrived. Today I packed up my final boxes and bid farewell. to my office. Monday will bring me to the adjacent building and the 13th floor. We got let out early today and I had a productive afternoon mowing the lawn and fixing the Rivendell. Both my wheels are damaged but otherwise the bike damage is cosmetic.