October 30th, 2012
Distance
106 Miles
Time
7:12:39
Route Map/Profile
Weather
Picture
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| Not the best picture, but you can see snow on the mountains in the distance. |
Ride Report
It's been nice and warm for the past few days, so I was able to make it back to Lake Tahoe. It was one of those perfect days- warm at the low elevations, but snowy up on the mountains. There isn't a whole lot of snow up there right now, but it's just enough to make the views from below more interesting.
On a side note, I was hit by a car Friday on my commute to work. To make a long story short, I was taken down by a right hook in a construction area. Luckily for me, both the driver and I were in the process of slamming on our brakes, so the collision wasn't as violent as it could have been. I took the hit on my left side, was thrown onto the bumper, and somehow landed on my feet as I was rolling off of the bumper.
The woman (Shocking!) who hit me jumped out of her car and was very apologetic. She seemed more shaken up about the whole thing than I was. I imagine it must be scary to see a human body bouncing off of your front bumper and onto the hood of your car. She admitted fault and asked if there was anything she could do. I was more interested in checking for any damage to my bike. I just bought a new rear wheel about a month ago, so I was especially fixated on that. My chain had dropped off, but aside from that everything seemed to be fine, so I told her not to worry about it and I was quick to get out of there. I don't know why, but in my mind I couldn't imagine anything positive happening if cops were involved. The accident was her fault, but part of me felt guilty for not taking the whole lane, which has the tendency to piss people off but would have saved me in this situation. So while you could say the accident was mostly her fault, I shared some of the blame as well.
I must have been running off adrenaline for a little while. A few minutes later as I was riding I noticed that (a) my front wheel was out of true and (b) my left leg was injured. I stopped to take a look at the damage and I had a nice little scrape on my shin that would later be accompanied by bruises. My best guess is that this is where the bumper of the car actually hit me. It's nothing too terrible, but it's probably going to leave a scar behind as a nice reminder to take the lane when in doubt.
Once the adrenaline wore off I started to experience, for lack of a better term, a crash. It was like coming off of a sugar rush, but more extreme. I was beginning to realize that things could have been much worse. I felt a little bit scared and my hands were shaking. Eventually that feeling wore off until it was time to ride back home.
Things could have been much worse. I was lucky that the driver slowed down before hitting me. I was lucky that I was hit by a car and not a truck so I could fall up over the hood and not down underneath a wheel. I was lucky that I didn't hit my head on anything, which could have been bad news even at low speed. I was lucky the driver stopped and didn't flee the scene. I was lucky my front wheel was the only thing that got damaged. Most of all, I'm lucky that I'm not hurt and I can continue to ride.
Be safe out there.
