Spoiler Alert!

Once again it's been a while. But I have an interesting story.

Had a pretty violent crash today on my bike. I was passing a runner on the GW Parkway trail, about halfway to Mount Vernon, and yelled out "on your left." So what does the guy do? Well, naturally he immediately jumps into the lane that I"m passing him in. And I hit him head on, going at a pretty good clip (19.3 mph). I remember only a few distinct moments. I remember yelling to him that I was passing. I remember yelling again when he jumped in my lane (like 0.01 seconds before impact). I remember lowering my head so I'd hit him with my helmet (also about 0.01 seconds before impact). And I remember lying there on the pavement after the crash.

I was in pretty good shape. I lost a chunk of skin from my finger, but pretty small. I got a bloody nose, but managed to not get too much blood on me. That made it look kind of bad at the time... And... well, I think that's all I suffered. This poor guy was not in such good shape. My aerobars hit him right in the chest. Oh, and my helmet hit him right in the chest. He swore he was ok, but I think he broke a rib. He wasn't walking very well.

The bike suffered an injury also. Broken aerobars. They're bent up at a pretty severe angle, which make me wonder why I didn't realize this until like 5 minutes after the crash. Also, somehow my bar tape on the right side came undone.

For you voyeurs, here's some pictures...

The bike...


Ok, for those of you who don't bike, those bars sticking forward and up from my handlebars should really be going straight forward. The dude's chest bent them up. Pretty obvious, right?, but I didn't realize until I was about a mile down the road after the crash.

Blood on helmet (not MY blood)...

I don't know where this blood came from. I don't think it was me... I only had a bloody nose, so not sure how that would get on the top of my helmet, and I did pretty much impale the guy with my helmet, so I'm pretty sure it was him. Although after the crash he wasn't obviously bleeding. I dunno...

Ouwie on my finger...


Luckily I had my gloves on, or this would have been much worse. There are some pretty good scuff marks on the glove palms, which I'm sure would have been my skin all over the pavement.

Well, that's all... for now...