Angels and ice cream

While riding back home from Coldstone (finally got around to using my birthday gift certificate), I noticed one of my old bikes parked at a bike rack. I sold 4 bikes in 2007 via Craigslist, and this was the first one I have seen post-sale. Very little had been changed since I sold it; same tires, same mismatched brakes (sidepull front and centerpull rear), and the angel sticker.

On a visit to Santa Fe, a woman approached me and asked if I believed in angels. I was a little caught off-guard, but answered that yes I do believe in angels. Satisfied by the answer, she gave me a 0.5 by 1 cm sticker (and one to Jill also) for protection. I stuck mine to the back side of the seat tube just below the seat stays. Jill placed hers somewhere, but I think it fell off.

I wonder if I still get the benefit of the sticker since it was given to me? Or does the new rider (or any of his friends) benefit, though he/they might not know it exists? My friend Dave thinks that it's inevitable that bike riders will get in a bike wreck some day. I disagree. I hope that I'm right.

On Saturday, I decided to join the club ride from my favorite local bike shop. In my mind, a group ride will be a fun time of cruising smoothly in a paceline, enjoying the draft of a large number of people until one takes a pull in the front. Instead, it was more of a disjointed slug of people that stopped to wait periodically for the dropped riders only to drop them again straight away. But my dream lives on!

I talked to a young man that admired my big boy blue bike. I told him that I liked his older bike frame with new components. This got him to explain that he had to replace the fork and who knows what else due to a crash. He was riding down Comanche (that's our road) perhaps using his clip-on aerobars (details are fuzzy for good reason) when a car made a left turn in front of him. He supermanned through the closed passenger window, cutting his face and breaking his back and something else (I forget).

I'm always curious to know how crashes happen, partly to not repeat them myself and partly for the same reason people slow to look at car crashes. In this particular case, I suggest that though the car driver was technically at fault, better awareness by the rider could have prevented it. Not getting hurt is much better than not being at fault. Separate turn lanes are present on Comanche for all roads, so a rider should take note whenever a car enters one. Also, riding on aerobars is not such a good idea when cars are present because the brake levers take time to grab.

Finally, I had a 70 minute phone interview this morning for a very challenging job. I feel good about my performance, but my experience does not line up perfectly with their projects. We shall see.