not superman

Is too much oxygen bad for your brain? I ponder this because our move to Urbana brought us about 4000' closer to sea level where the air is more dense and I really goofed up.

Wed night is my team's fast training bike ride night (that's right, normally a Groucho Marx type guy, I have joined a team, WildCard Cycling). The standard procedure is to ride into the wind on the way out and then ride home really fast. About 5 miles from home, I was digging deep to stay with a group of 8ish guys when I found myself suddenly rubbing my front wheel into the side of the rear wheel in front of me. This is bad! After breaking free, I swerved quickly, lost control, and supermanned towards the pavement, which grabbed pieces of clothing and a bunch of skin. Later I realized that my watch broke off and disappeared into roadside grass. The bike was nearly unscathed excepting torn bar tape and a flat front tire. Thankfully I caused no one else to crash.

Wiping out on my 4th team ride does not build the mates' trust in my bike handling abilities. On the bright side, they'll remember me.

I feel very foolish. There are only two important rules in group riding: (1) don't brake without warning and (2) don't run into the bike in front of you. So as to prevent future violations of rule 2, I plan to scooch back a tad on future rides. That way, if my brain o.d.'s on O2 again, I'll have a little more time to adjust.


Jill patched me up nicely, as you can see in the photo. I have road rash off and on from my shoulder to my shin, all on my right side. Thankfully, no bones broke, and my visage is the same as ever. If you have a strong stomach, I can send you a pic of my back before we applied bandages. No, we didn't take any pictures of other scraped regions because this is a family blog.