TJ Woodruff ONLINE

The trip to Tucson was relatively quick since most of it was done by airplane with just a bit of driving on either end of the trip. I’ve been in town just shy of a week now and I’m starting to get reaccustomed to the ways of life here. The guesthouse is working out nicely and things are starting to find there respective places as I get settled in.

I planned to get in a couple rides by now, but that hasn’t happened. It’s the off-season, but that normally wouldn’t keep me away from a ride or two. A swollen, cheese-grated knee and mangled palms have kept me off the bike however.

Here’s how the unfortunate series of events played out. My bikes arrived at the Arizona Cyclist on Broadway Friday morning so I stopped in and picked them up. Next, I brought the bikes home to build them. Got them each out of the boxes, put the wheels on and the bars back into the stems. I notice that the seat binder bolt for the road bike was missing so I call up AZ Cyclist on Cambell, which is the closer of the two shops to my place to confirm that they’d have a replacement. Mine must have fallen out of the box as it was nowhere to be found. OF course they had what I needed so I nearly set off on my Bridgestone townie, but noticed that the tube was bulging through the old-cracked tire. This was the damage resulting from the bike being stored in a hot Arizona garage all summer long… Without much thought I came in, grabbed the Litespeed and set off down the driveway, did the 90 degree turn onto the road, got it up to full speed in the big ring, then boom - straight onto my palms, elbow, stomach and right knee. Sliding three feet or so over the rough pavement before finally stopping was torture. Note to self, don’t forget to tighten the stem bolts. This by far this is the biggest bone-head ed move I’ve made with a bike. I was more upset with my mistake than I was about the crash and bodily damage. I had blood all over my hands, arms and leg. Not cool. I hobbled back to the house and started scrubbing out the rocks with some soap after phoning Chloe to come to my rescue. I opted out of stitches at the hospital figuring that I could clean it and close it up myself, saving a costly bill. With Chloe’s help we were successful and I got to sit around all weekend unable to move too much. Fortunately the swelling is down now and the wounds are healing quite nicely. It’ll be a while before I’m pedaling again, as that might stretch the skin over the knee too much. At least I can walk around.

cyclist decor on the basement wall…

What baffles me is how the stem was so perfectly straight that I never questioned that it might not be clamped to the steerer. And how didn’t by bars slip at all when I did the 90 degree onto the street? Why did I ever loosen them anyways when there never was a need to with my bike box? Crashing there at 5 mph would have been much more pleasant. Lesson learned, humble pie eaten, house sat in while a bit of Tucson has passed me by. At least I got in some forced rest when life would have been hustled otherwise. Live and learn and always tighten your stem bolts.

-TJ

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Off the Bike Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.