-
on a bike crash:

there is something about wrecking on your bike that feels so defeating. not sure why this is, but it hurts deeper than the little scuffs you gain on your forearm. when i crashed, i remember feeling the need to cry about it. not so much because of the mild pain the crash caused me to my right hip and elbow but more because of the feeling that i had just failed.

when E told me about her bike wreck where she had turned a corner and her front tire suddenly slipped out from under her due to a carpet of soggy leaves, she told me with tears in her eyes and a shaky voice. she cautioned me to always look out for wet leaves on pavement. i heard her caution others about this too. cyclists look out for each other!

there must also be something about the spectacle of a bike wreck, which usually happens just as you are in front of or moving through a crowd of people. your cyclist pride is damaged when others watch you fail so hard at something you are usually really good at. also, i have been riding a bike since i was below the age of ten and i know what i am doing, damnit.

how can we mess up so suddenly while doing something we have done for so long?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
killing time kills me on the inside because then i think of all the things i could be doing or the people i could be with like finding my way around colombia in a sunshine city listening to spanish and breathing the culture or building my own farm on the fringes of town like my family they are everywhere and i am too far sometimes, it seems or the one i tell myself could be my comfort
Read more
-
the pain came quick, unexpectedly. marching down a hill all day, stumbling amongst rocks and the sun beating down. the trek seemed eternal and i only wanted it to end. when the pain came i didn't stop. for i was so determined that even the prospect of something broken wasn't to deter me from the journey's completion. and it surprised me, how badly i wanted to get back into my world of comfort. it was, after all, what i was trying to escape when i first set out only two days before. to go into the wild on my own and see the forest through a clean lens, without influence or expectation. i just went. and only forty eight hours later i wanted to be done. i felt guilty about this. i wanted to be enjoying myself. and this is the situation i find myself in so commonly. the threat of discomfort keeps me coming back to my old ways. it is good to have these experience though. i find out more clearly what i want, what i am good at, what more i can learn, what i do not care for. fi...
Read more