Caution Wild Animals Crossing

Man, last night I hopped on my bike to meet Amanda before some art film up on Capitol Hill. The sun was out, yet it had cooled off a little bit, perfect evening for riding thru my neighborhood. Around the north end of Greenlake, cars park on both sides of the road. This leaves the roads pretty narrow. As I was cruising along from the left a big black dog jets out right between two parked cars. He looked like he was having so much fun running in the sun. He had a blue ball in his mouth. He was making a big loop after catching it, heading back to the guy and gal on the sidewalk to have them throw that cursed blue ball again. Poor little guy had no idea what was coming his way. Specifically, me. Not too fast but not slow by any means. I t-boned that furry beast hard. So hard he didn’t make any noise. I didn’t have enough time to lock the wheel and there was no room to turn at all so a collision was eminent. As I flew over the bars I preformed a wonderful tuck. This is a skill I don’t get to practice much, thankfully. But I was very happy with this crash. I landed on my left side, arms cradling my head. My elbow, shoulder, hip, knee and ankle are all taking the impact on the concrete. Once I slid to a stop I found I couldn’t get up. Not that I was broken or anything, I was trapped somehow. My bag had slid up and trapped my left arm. After a couple attempts I hit the eject button on my chrome bag and freed myself. This is the second time my bag has saved me much road rash. The nice folks who were out walking the dog were freaking out a little bit. They were really concerned for me, which was nice. The lady picked up my lock while the guy helped me to my feet. A quick spin of the wheels showed that they both still spun true. A few seconds later I checked out ok so back I was back on my bike. They were saying sorry over and over. I told them no worries, accident happen, enjoy the rest of this sunny day and bid them farewell. I made it a few blocks before it dawned on me, how’s the dog? My front wheel hit him square in the ribs. I don’t recall seeing him after our paths crossed. I hope he’s doing ok. Today I’m sore as fuck; I’m sure that dog is not feeling much better. Now all I can hope for is a nice bruise. If I’m going to be limping around for the next week at least I’d like to have something to show for it.

Justin