It's a BIKE Lane!!!

Had I seen a sign like this on Friday, I would be in a lot less pain than I am today, though the sign is not entirely accurate for my experience. Here's the story ...

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon here in Berkeley perfect for a bike ride. So, my wife and I ventured out to one of the many trails that lead away from Berkeley along the bay ... yes it's a tough life living in this area ... as we rode along we encountered some oncoming cyclists and joggers. Now, the cyclists I can handle, afterall, it's a BIKE trail, but the joggers upset me a bit.

Yeah, I know they want a safe place to jog away from traffic, but certainly there are safer places to jog. Here was the kicker, up ahead of us I noticed a group of school-aged joggers coming at us. It really wouldn't have irked me as much, but I flashed back to the week before on a different trail where a school group was using the bike trail as their "track" and were running sprints in both lanes, toward oncoming cyclists and didn't seem to want to get out of the cyclist's way. At least this week the group wasn't sprinting in both lanes, but they were running in groups, some two across the oncoming lane (which was fun) but some three abreast forcing one of the runners into MY lane.

Now the first such group that we encountered had "smart" runners. I call them "smart" because the runner that was in our lane was "smart" enough to get out of our lane and fall in behind his friends, we passed happily and kept going. The next group apparently did not have "smart" runners as the runner in my lane decided to stay in the lane. Yes, that's right, with two bicyclists riding single-file toward him this teen-ager kept running toward us. O.K. here's where the story kicks into slow-motion because so much happened at the same time and much of it revolves around my thoughts.

I noticed my wife pass narrowly by the boy who had invaded our lane. My mind began thinking, "surely this teen-ager is going to get out of my way" I began to slow down my bike since there was a curb to my right that would have prohibited my using the grass to get around the invader. I noticed the oncoming boy looking as though he was trying to step in front of his friends, but he didn't make it in time, and just like the Batman shows of the 60's, "KABAM" I colided with this teenager.

As I fell to the ground, I had wonderful thoughts. As I felt my helmeted head hit the pavement, I thought "sure am glad I am wearing a helmet" then I felt my shoulder hit the pavement and I slid along the pavement a bit and I thought "sure am glad I am wearing long sleeves or I would be a real bloody mess" then my side hit the curb and I thought, "I wonder if I broke a rib or two, that's going to be painful" and finally the thought that brought me out of slow motion and back to the real world, "I definitely got the wind knocked-out of me, start breathing, start breathing!"

Well, you can tell by my typing this that I survived the incident, though even now several days later I have a bit of pain in my back, the feeling of a knot that prevents me from breathing as deeply as I would like or moving in ways that seem "natural". In some ways the "best" pain of all was last night when I sneezed and had this feeling like someone poked a finger sharply straight through my body, wow, what an incredible feeling of pain that I really would rather not have to re-live.

That's the story for today, I could go on and describe the road-rash that I got, the bruises I have, how on Saturday the microwave died, on Sunday we bought a new television and on Monday a new microwave (which was on an incredible sale), and today it was back to the usual flow of the day, study, go to class, study, study, study.