Today was simply beautiful bike weather. It is unusually fresh and cool for the season. It was around 60 degrees for my ride this morning, with a nice tail wind and beautiful blue skies and low humidity. This is not the usual middle of June weather in Washington.
I manage to fall off the bike yesterday. I tried to jump onto the path too precipitously after passing some pedestrians spread all across the path. I left a little skin on the pavement and today it hurts like mad. I guess it is like a burn. It is a scrape just deep enough to excite all the pain receptors but not deep enough to turn any of them off. The leg is a bit worse, but they are not the kinds of things that take too long to heal. I had to wear short sleeves so as not to stain a good shirt, since some blood is still rubbing off.
Way back when I first came to DC, I had a spectacular fall near Arlington Cemetery. I fell and slid on my back across the wet pavement. It made a very conspicuous but not deep wounds, much like today’s but all over my back. I washed it off when I got to work, but it wasn’t finished and I ruined one of my shirts. Lesson learned.
There is a sequel. I was discussing biking a couple years later with my colleague George Lannon in Brazil. He said he would never ride to work because of the danger. When I inquired further, he said that he had once seen “some a-hole” slide clear across the road on his back near Arlington Cemetery. That evidently put him off biking forever. Small world.
I ride past that place almost every day. I haven’t fallen there for twenty-five years.