A Fat Icy Ride

This has to be allegorical, I don’t have a bike. There is no ice in Portland at the end of March. I wouldn’t be on a bike at this point. A few years back I got a wild hair and decided to try for a recumbent bike. They gave me the chance to test drive it. I was doing okay but then in turning I took it too sharp and then corrected. I stuck my leg down as I am used to on upright bikes to guide the turn but it didn’t work the same. My leg folded up past me into the position it takes in the jazz splits and I came straight down hard with the bike beneath me. A recumbent puts your leg out nearly straight. So with my right leg folded up under me, my left was stuck out straight and I really did do a jazz split with the bike under me. I slid, bare right ankle grinding the pavement for several feet this way. When I got up something didn’t feel right. I picked the bike up and tried to walk. My left leg folded up right out from under me. I had hyper-extended the ligaments in my left thigh, and partially tore at least one of them. That was the last time. I will not try to ride a bike again.

As a child I was one of the guys who could ride long distances, no hands, using balance to make turns.

A Fat Icy Ride

A hard ride is ice
on the bike you gave to me
though I admit it,
I am far too fat
for riding and my bike screams
for mercy with me
grinding it into
the ice just by pedaling,
by standing upright
and bearing down, and
pulling at the handlebars
when I push again.

March 29, 2009 8:50 PM