Ten days after being hit by a car… well, it makes you different.
I’ve been watching and enjoying professional bike racing as a spectator for years. Crashes aren’t unusual. The risk is always there. After all, you’re racing around the countryside for hundreds, if not thousands of miles. Many of those miles are on under-improved roads, in all kinds of weather on tires that don’t quite span an inch across. When nearly two-hundred riders in a peloton ride at a blistering race pace merely inches away from someone else’s wheel you expect broken collarbones, road rash, sometimes worse. Yeah, accidents happen. It's part of the game.
Commuters and recreational riders face risks too. But slips and falls are just one hazard. Now add the greater fear that comes from the few, but vocal, angry and hostile drivers who may only wish you harm even if they don’t all act on their impulses. Or from the inattentive driver who may not set out to hurt anyone but who will kill you dead just the same. Then there’s the cop who many cyclists know; the cop who sees someone on a bike as an obnoxious nuisance undeserving of the equal rights he's sworn to protect; the cop who through inexperience, laziness or intent shatters the very institutions that many of us grew up with and clinged to by trampling on notions of justice and fair play. We’ll see where this road leads.
