48th ride of 2019 - Saturday, 6/22/2019
2019 mileage: 2276.5
Today's ride was a really wild adventure. I set off at a late hour for me on a Saturday, not getting started until a few minutes past 8:00 a.m. It was, however, a lovely morning for a ride, with a temperature of 57° (up to 64° by the time I finished).
I was planning to ride again to Baker Rd. ... but my plans changed. Just over a quarter of the way into the total ride I hoped to do, I was preparing to turn off of Hilltop Drive and start down the big hill on the bike trail that parallels Jackson Rd.—when the metal of the clamp holding my seat on snapped, and the trike went out of control and flipped, sending me sprawling and giving me a nice case of road rash on the inside of my left elbow and the base of my left thumb. I feel so incredibly fortunate, though, about the timing of this incident—that id didn't happen after I had begun down that big hill.
Also, had it happened then, I would have been isolated ... but where it in fact occurred, was right in front of a house, where a woman (who I later learned was Lisa) and her son, Caleb (who looked to be about 12) came running out. Having seen my fall, they were quite worried, but after establishing that I was OK, I showed them my card to explain the speech difficulties, and then we conversed a bit. She asked where I lived, and after I said "about 5 miles," she ran back in to get something that she hoped might enable me to continue riding to get home. The plastic zip ties that she came with, however, left it still unsafe to ride, so I chained it up to their fence (with her permission) and contacted Uber for a ride home.
Michelle is out of town with our car. so I'll have to wait for her return in order to pick the trike up, and will then take it to the dealer (Jack's, in Dearborn) on Monday for replacement of the seat clamp. So, I end up today with only 5.4 miles, in 40 minutes ... but, all in all, Im grateful, as the outcome could have been dramatically worse.
Today's ride was a really wild adventure. I set off at a late hour for me on a Saturday, not getting started until a few minutes past 8:00 a.m. It was, however, a lovely morning for a ride, with a temperature of 57° (up to 64° by the time I finished).
I was planning to ride again to Baker Rd. ... but my plans changed. Just over a quarter of the way into the total ride I hoped to do, I was preparing to turn off of Hilltop Drive and start down the big hill on the bike trail that parallels Jackson Rd.—when the metal of the clamp holding my seat on snapped, and the trike went out of control and flipped, sending me sprawling and giving me a nice case of road rash on the inside of my left elbow and the base of my left thumb. I feel so incredibly fortunate, though, about the timing of this incident—that id didn't happen after I had begun down that big hill.
Also, had it happened then, I would have been isolated ... but where it in fact occurred, was right in front of a house, where a woman (who I later learned was Lisa) and her son, Caleb (who looked to be about 12) came running out. Having seen my fall, they were quite worried, but after establishing that I was OK, I showed them my card to explain the speech difficulties, and then we conversed a bit. She asked where I lived, and after I said "about 5 miles," she ran back in to get something that she hoped might enable me to continue riding to get home. The plastic zip ties that she came with, however, left it still unsafe to ride, so I chained it up to their fence (with her permission) and contacted Uber for a ride home.
Michelle is out of town with our car. so I'll have to wait for her return in order to pick the trike up, and will then take it to the dealer (Jack's, in Dearborn) on Monday for replacement of the seat clamp. So, I end up today with only 5.4 miles, in 40 minutes ... but, all in all, Im grateful, as the outcome could have been dramatically worse.
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