Smile and Fly
- scotland
An account of my first bike accident (in Edinburgh (this year)). Here (click) is an account of last year’s bike accident.
After a long and difficult, but not unpleasant day at work I cycled home yesterday on a beautiful sunny evening on one of the longest days of the year. In Scotland, the warm sun on my face is always appreciated and rarely too strong.
Because of the loveliness outside I was feeling lovely inside too, and I wanted to share my good mood. I started to smile at oncoming cyclists and pedestrians, because whenever I get smiled at by other cyclists on my commute to work it makes me stop ruminating and worrying and I smile as well instead. So I set myself the challenge of making at least one person smile on my 40 minute cycle home.
Half of the people I smiled at didn’t even look at me, of the other half none changed anything about their facial expression, apart from the one guy who changed his look from tense to quizzical. I tried harder and made the smile bigger, but to no avail. I believe taking off the sun glasses might have helped, but at some point I forgot about my challenge and just enjoyed the sun.
That’s when I crashed into a kid on a bike who cut a blind corner directly in front of me. Even if my brakes had been in a better condition there is no way I could have avoided the crash. We both flew over our respective handlebars in a pretty cool stunt-worthy scene and landed on the tarmac.
After a few seconds of pain the adrenaline kicked in and the pain subsided, and the boy and I examined each others injuries and damages. I think I got away with less damage to my bike than him. However, while he didn’t seem to have sustained any injuries other than a bruised leg, I, despite landing surprisingly well considering the stunt, managed to scrape my elbow a bit and my right hand quite badly, rendering the latter mostly useless for at least a couple of days.
Oh well, dressing, lacing the shoes, and writing are taking a bit longer now, but on the plus side, my flatmate is doing the dishes for me and even took in my washing this afternoon.
After a long and difficult, but not unpleasant day at work I cycled home yesterday on a beautiful sunny evening on one of the longest days of the year. In Scotland, the warm sun on my face is always appreciated and rarely too strong.
Because of the loveliness outside I was feeling lovely inside too, and I wanted to share my good mood. I started to smile at oncoming cyclists and pedestrians, because whenever I get smiled at by other cyclists on my commute to work it makes me stop ruminating and worrying and I smile as well instead. So I set myself the challenge of making at least one person smile on my 40 minute cycle home.
Half of the people I smiled at didn’t even look at me, of the other half none changed anything about their facial expression, apart from the one guy who changed his look from tense to quizzical. I tried harder and made the smile bigger, but to no avail. I believe taking off the sun glasses might have helped, but at some point I forgot about my challenge and just enjoyed the sun.
That’s when I crashed into a kid on a bike who cut a blind corner directly in front of me. Even if my brakes had been in a better condition there is no way I could have avoided the crash. We both flew over our respective handlebars in a pretty cool stunt-worthy scene and landed on the tarmac.
After a few seconds of pain the adrenaline kicked in and the pain subsided, and the boy and I examined each others injuries and damages. I think I got away with less damage to my bike than him. However, while he didn’t seem to have sustained any injuries other than a bruised leg, I, despite landing surprisingly well considering the stunt, managed to scrape my elbow a bit and my right hand quite badly, rendering the latter mostly useless for at least a couple of days.
Oh well, dressing, lacing the shoes, and writing are taking a bit longer now, but on the plus side, my flatmate is doing the dishes for me and even took in my washing this afternoon.
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