Tetanus (Not)

I was running a little bit late yesterday morning and thinking, do I ride or drive? It's Bike Week in Toronto this week, and I had decided to ride all week. Then the forecast called for thunderstorms on Wednesday and I caved and drove, which meant, of course, that the thundershowers didn't hit until after I drove back home. This meant that Thursday had extra impetus to ride, even though I was probably going to be late for that first meeting if I did so. Screw it, I thought; I'll push a bit harder and if I'm still going to be late then I'll call. So I headed down to the underground parking and unlocked my bike, throwing everything into my milk crate trunk, and heading out.

About the milk crate. I was asked three times last week why I have a milk crate strapped to the rear rack of my bike. For the record, it's my trunk. It's how I carry stuff from home to work and back, how I carry groceries, how I carry climbing gear, and it's pretty essential to my happiness. Yes, it probably does slow me down a little bit, but I'm not very big so I can take a bit of a weight hit, and besides, it's mostly in my wind shadow.

Back to the underground parking, where I was heading out just a little bit faster than usual, and where I was flying around the corner and up the ramp, a little too sharp, and a little too fast. I had my helmet, thank goodness. In my milk crate.

Have you ever cartwheeled on your bicycle? It doesn't always go so well. Everything seemed to hit the ground at the same time, except for my forehead, which hit the pavement a second after everything else with a hollow "conk" and a meaty "thwack" all at the same time, and suddenly it seemed to be raining blood. I picked everything up and headed to the elevator, pushing my bike and leaving a wet trail of red. I met the super and another tenant in the elevator, who looked at me and were instantly Totally Freaked Out, which made me very, very scared. I had been telling myself that head wounds bleed a lot, that there was nothing to worry about, that freaking out wasn't warranted. It was starting to seem like maybe I was wrong about that last bit.

"My face!" I thought frantically. "What have I done to my face?"

With visions of exposed bone making my dizzy, I pushed my limping bicycle down the hallway to the apartment, where JP was thankfully still home. I calmed down, cleaned up, and decided to head to the hospital. The cut on my forehead was indeed nothing to freak out about, but it might need a stitch or two. I'd also scraped off a fair bit of skin in various places, exposing a lot of my innards to dirt, and when was that last tetanus shot?

After waiting forever, I was finally telling my lame story to the tremendously kind and eager student Nurse Practitioner. She reassured me that I'm not actually the lamest cyclist injury ever, as someone else had suffered a bad sprain after falling from a bike being test-ridden in the aisle at Canadian Tire. But I'm certainly number two...

So here I am at the end of Bike Week, getting ready to Ride for Heart, and taking stock.

Three stitches, but this will heal:

where this will not:

and the limping bike? Only $150 to replace the rear wheel. Thursday wasn't the best day. As Juno says, "Jeeze man, stop falling down. And breaking your toys."