Heard a car accident in the night. Sounded like someone trying to prove that their truck was the fastest and loudest in the county and was having a solo-race of decibels to prove this to their constituency of no one. I can tell only these facts: A diesel engine spluttered through the natural sounds of night. The diesel engine suddenly worked very hard to hurl itself towards a large, seemingly inanimate object. A loud crunch, with the diesel quieting down to a whisper as it realized the consequence of its actions. A male human voice murmured a series of words, presumably in English. The diesel engine began to roar again, this time running off into the night with two new metal friends, rubbing together as they ran off into the black veil of night sounds.
I fell asleep shortly after.
I woke up early after a great night of sleep, ready to tackle the day ahead. I was heading to a campsite just outside one of Florida's large cities: Gainesville. I was going to be back in an area where I could effortlessly restock on food and gear, and I had just enough food and condiments to get me through today and tonight. I got onto my bike and began looking up the directions I would need for today and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw: I'd be on smaller, side roads for half the day. The other half I would be on bike/pedestrian trails.
This, was a revelation.
There were so few cars and obstacles in my way that I easily got into a solid rhythm. There was a little wind but it was more than welcome as the day approached a high of 85 degrees and humidity at 100%. Without the wind, I would have been an even more sweaty mess than I was; but it was an enjoyable ride. Except for one moment.
This is a moment that confirmed to me that my bike, Kona, was as much as a character on this trip as I was. A moment where it seemed as if she reacted to me under her own accord. A moment, I'll admit embarrassingly, in which she dominated me.
In the final few miles of my ride I slowed to take a snapchat of the trail ahead of me.
I had just taken and saved the above snap when I decided I should try to take a good picture of the area. I had my phone in my left hand, my left wrist resting on the handlebars, and my right hand on my brake hoods in a typical, relaxed manner (Exhibit A).
Exhibit A
I stood up on my pedals and stroked down with my left foot, causing my right foot to rise. As my left foot crested past the bottom of it’s stroke path, I shifted my weight onto my right leg, and with no left hand to offer cross-support to my pedal stroke, I stuttered awkwardly. This awkward stutter caused my right foot to slip off the pedal. My right, and left, foot were adorned in sandals. First: I am not a sandal fan. I dislike open-toed anything, for no logical reason in particular but for every illogical reason in particular. I prefer to either be barefoot or have fully covered feet. The only shoes to bridge the gap successfully, to me, are the Keen Uneeks. A horribly, ugly and wretchedly-colored shoe. I enjoy them earnestly.
I was once in a store with the shoes on and the customer service associate commented to me that they were “nice shoes.” I replied with “oh wow, really? Thanks!” The associate responded with: “Nah, they ugly as hell.”
I wore these ugly as hell shoes down to zero tread, leaving a permanent musk of feet. The shoe and I were at the end of their working life and I decided that wearing them for most of my ride through Florida was a worthwhile way to retire them. I had spent a portion of the day battling the non-existent tread of the shoes as my feet had slipped around my platform pedals on nearly every stroke. This stroke, the one where I only had one arm available while riding to the Gainesville-area, was the end of my shoes’ and I’s working relationship. As my foot slipped off the pedal and landed on the ground, the last bit of traction on my shoes held fast to the ground. Being mid-pedal stroke in an awkward position, I was bent over nearly 90 degrees, chest on my handlebars, when I slipped off my pedal and my foot glued itself to the rough asphalt beneath. I suddenly became stationary.
My bike, however, was still moving at 12 mph with a gross weight of 85 pounds. Doing the math, that is roughly 555 Jules of kinetic energy. I had zero. The front of my bike seat, as physics dictates, continued along it’s trajectory towards an unwitting human target bent into an interesting arrangement. As the bike seat moved forward on its trajectory, the right pedal made purchase with the thin piece of tendon that connected the heel bone and calf muscle, named after a famous figure of Greek mythology (a major tendon in the functioning of normal actions like walking or riding a bike). The pedal, in conjunction with the seat, forced me to into an unbalanced state and I was caught in a strange flail of limbs and bike that led to me continuously stumbling for several seconds.
Eventually I jumped away from Kona, barely clearing my body from her as she tried to fall atop of me. It was as if she was rolling with laughter at what she had just done. I was now yelling at my bike, cursing at it and calling her names with blood coming out of my ankle and my rear now hurting badly. Even as I picked Kona up—awkwardly—she seemed to want to lunge at me as her handlebars followed gravity and flopped towards me, ala Bill Watterson’s tale of a boy and his bike in Calvin & Hobbes.
I never sent the snapchat.