Rhymes with floored

I got through a classic biker nightmare yesterday mostly unscathed, other than a few scrapes and bruises.

I was moving uphill at a pretty good clip (given that I was peddling uphill) on a narrow-ish street when a truck came barreling up behind me. I had my lights on and I was wearing a bright green reflective vest like some sort of runaway utilities worker so it is unlikely that this truck driver didn't see me, rather he severely underestimated what a comfortable space buffer between truck and bike would be, pushing me towards the cars parked along the side of the road.

Then, immediately in front of me, a guy sitting in a parked car opened the door.

Ouch.

I slammed into the door, vaulting off my bike but not flipping. I landed on my left side but didn't lay in the street for more than a fraction of a second. I popped up immediately did a quick scan of my body and determined that I was completely intact. I turned around and yelled at the dooring perpetrator "You're lucky I'm OK!" And then I fled the scene.

I was hyper-alert as I pedaled home. I felt like I had 359 degree peripheral vision and could maybe even see infrared. Once in the shower at home, starting to calm down, I began to discover that I was in fact somewhat scathed. A scrape on my foot from getting yanked out of the pedal cage, tender spots on my left arm, elbow and hip, and a muscle pull in my neck. But, all told, not bad.

The purpose of the bike ride had been to time my new commute* and then had turned into a longer spin to enjoy the sunset on the water. I think it will be great to be able to bike to work and with every unfortunate bike incident I have, I am reducing the probability of future unfortunate incidents. That's how that works, right?


*Yeah, I got a job. More about that later.