Jim: Kissing John MacAdam

We always joke about the Muffin Ride - Squadra Coppi's easy Friday morning spin - as being by far the most dangerous ride most riders will ever undertake. It's true. More freakish crashes happen on the Muffin Ride than occur in Atlanta on I-85 after an ice storm. My first ride with Coppi, in fact, was a Muffin Ride. I celebrated by low-siding while turning onto Quincy Street in Arlington, after hitting some black ice, or construction debris, or because some inchoate force in the universe decided it was time to deck me, or maybe I crashed just for no reason at all. Since that day several months ago, I found out one other rider has crashed on the exact same spot, in exactly the same inexplicable manner. My friend Bill, another Coppi, crashed and broke his collarbone a little further down the bike trail on the Muffin Ride. For a ride where we all go really slow, it's bloody dangerous.

I brought a non-racing riding buddy out for the Muffin Ride this morning. I warned him to pay attention, since freak crashes always occur on this ride. Everything went okay until the Muffin Ride was finished and we were transiting back to where I'd parked my truck at the base of the Capital Crescent Trail, underneath Key Bridge and the Whitehurst Freeway. Jon (not this John Brewer, but my other friend Jon) was riding along with me.

We were spinning about 10 MPH down K Street, which is under the Whitehurst at that point. It's dark under there. I was going really slow to cool off, since my truck was 50 yards up and I needed to be relaxed before I took off on the 40 minute trip home. We rode over a broken up bit of pavement that I had trouble seeing due to my sunglasses, the overcast, and the huge overpass above our heads.

Surprised by the bumps and concerned for my safety in the dark, I took my sunglasses off. As I fiddled with them, trying to wedge them into my helmet vents, I had one hand on the bars. Just then, I rode into a hole that I hadn't seen.

You know where this is going, don't you?

Straight down.

My front wheel went into some kind of a sewer vent pipe in the road that I hadn't seen in the murk. It was about six inches in diameter, and the cap on the pipe was all busted up. Ordinarily, I'd just ride over something like that, get bounced really badly and maybe put my wheel out of true, but I wouldn't crash. But I had one hand up to my face, and one hand on the handlebars. Plus I was on the fixed gear, which doesn't have the neutral handling of the geared bike going through obstacles.

BANG! The front wheel tucks under, and as is my wont, I go down face first. Fortunately, my right elbow and shoulder took the brunt of the blow. I wouldn't want to damage my $12 Performance gloves, or my cheapo-helmet (purchased to replace the one I cracked at Baker Park). I popped back up to my feet.

Jon rode back and asked, "what the hell just happened?" I looked back and saw the hole. About 15 seconds too late. Well, at least with the sunglasses off, there was no danger of me walking back to where the hole was, missing it again, and spraining my ankle in it.

The damage is minor, I think. The bike needs new handlebar tape. I've got three spots of minor road rash on my right leg. The elbow cuts (shown above) are the most spectacular evidence of the crash, and my right shoulder is aching - moderate A/C joint pain, a bruised pectoral (reaggravating an old injury), and bruised trapezius muscles. I don't think the shoulder dislocated or separated - if it was separated, I'd have passed out, and the A/C joint only hurts somewhat badly when I press down on it, much less than it has hurt in the past following separations. Oh yeah, and there's a ping-pong ball-sized hematoma on my right hip. But that doesn't hurt at all so it doesn't count as an injury.

On the way home, I picked up my toddler, William. In my small pickup truck, he had occasion to poke my elbow cuts about 50 times. "Daddy hurt. Bike-y fall." When your kid only knows about 75 words, and four of the words related to bicycle crashes, perhaps it's time to consider a new sport. Perhaps mountain biking. Mountain bikers don't crash much, do they? And how bad could it be... it's on dirt, right?

Five Advil and two bags of ice later, I'm mulling it over and wondering if it isn't too late to start playing rugby again. Jeeez. I wasn't even racing or going fast. I was trying to be safe. I even rode responsibly today on the Muffin Ride and didn't run 50 stoplights. What the heck... If I'm going to hurt like this on a regular basis, the least I could do would be to find a sport where I have the opportunity to hit my opponent back once in a while. This whole "John L. MacAdam beats Jim up" storyline is becoming a cliche. And no, it's not the District of Columbia's fault that their roads are hazardous. Everybody who lives in D.C. knows that secret, rat-like albino anarchist revolutionaries living in Georgetown's sewers occasionally blow up a manhole or utilities vent pipe, just to make life interesting for the surface-dwellers, whom they hate due our carefree lives above ground, our relatively small eyes, and our ability to vacation in Cabo without getting third degree sunburns. We have to take the roads as we find them and adjust accordingly, and I blew it by not getting my shades off earlier. Or perhaps by not staying in bed when I had the chance.