This has been quite a week and I’m not even half through it yet. Today I decided to bike to work which is an 9-mile journey. The return trip home feels like 15 or 20 miles since it has a couple of hills. The darn county should have designed the road so that both ways were on a downgrade.

I bike on the left side of the road so at least I can get the spectator benefits just before I die. Riding with traffic leaves me completely vulnerable and unaware if a rig decides to rear-end me. I want to have at least a fighting chance to veer away from oncoming traffic. I’ve read of far too many bikers taken out from traffic behind them. You have no clue what’s going on behind you and bike mirrors are too little, too late.

Case in point. I’d made it about 3 miles down the road today and a girl going at least 60 mph was too busy texting and headed onto the shoulder where I was pedaling. I swerved off the road and yelled but I don’t think Miss Clueless even saw the near miss. I wasn’t all that happy but figured I’d beat the odds and shouldn’t have any more trouble. Today at least. I guess I was a little clueless too.

So as I pedaled home today, I noticed a car pulling out of the local store. I figured he saw me but I think I’m going to quit make those kind of assumptions. He headed right for me without stopping before entering the roadway.

I laid my bike over and smacked down on the pavement. My two stubs caught the brunt of it, along with my still sore knee and a few other random areas of epidermis. Luckily, the young guy must have seen a flash going down. My front tire was under his car with my handlebars cozyied right against his bumper. I wasn’t happy and after I got up from lying on the pavement, I informed him of my feelings.

He apologized several times. I got on my machine and tried heading down the road one more time. Luckily, I was almost home so I arrived without incident.

Stick around for just one more little incident I had while at work. I’m loaning my brother a forklift for cherry harvest and decided to be a nice guy and run it up to his house. I took my bike with me so I could ride back down to work.

After parking the lift, I mounted the bike and started down the hill. Since it’s a fairly steep and pothole packed road, I decided to turn my camera on with it in my shirt pocket just in case there was any action along the way. I guess I’m not surprised to say there was.

After I built up a head of steam, I noticed a car coming out toward the road. At first I was sure they were going to stop but I moved over just in case. No such luck.  As each nano-second ticked by, I got scare-der and scare-der.

I quickly flipped the switch that turned my road bike into an off-road bike and headed for the tullies. I think I did a little yelling and then continued on my merry way. I had a lot of momentum built up and I didn’t want to waste the kenetic energy by stopping to gab so I just kept going, counting my lucky stars I was still able to pedal. Beside that, my motor was running a little hot and I needed some wind to cool it down.