Sabrina Dent: Freelance web designer, developer and internet marketer living in Cork, Ireland with one dog and a husband in no particular order.
Unlucky with Bicycles
I have a long but relatively tragic history with bicycles, starting in 1981 when I first learned to ride a two-wheeler. I was nine years old, and my mother had just produced my youngest sister, which was something of a disappointment as I had specifically ordered a baby brother. The bicycle was presented as a consolation prize, I duly learned to ride it, and it was promptly stolen off the front lawn of our summer house.
Four years later, at the age of 13, my school decided to take everyone in my class out of the comfortable environs of our NYC concrete jungle and dispatch us to the countryside for fresh air, green grass, and unpolluted sunshine. We were each given a choice between hiking, biking and sailing. I hate sailing and hiking sounded unnecessarily hot and sweaty, so I chose biking.
The biking contingent was duly bused off to Lancaster County, PA, which is the home of the Amish. This is important because the Amish have no cars, no electricity and thus, no phones. This became relevant when very shortly after arrival, I managed to get hit on my bicycle by the only vehicle for miles in any direction, which happened to be a very large lorry. It apparently look them 20 minutes to find a phone with which to call an ambulance, which I don’t remember because I was unconscious on the tarmac.
The tarmac was a critical turning point in my life because as it turns out, I had skidded across it for quite some distance after being catapulted from the bike, and so in addition to having broken various bits, I had managed to give myself burns and abrasions now covered in melted tar and various bits of gravel. This queued several years of steroid injections for scarring, as well as having various pieces of road spontaneously work their way out of my skin.
I was, in the aftermath of this, rather road shy. However, by 2001 I was also starting to pack on serious poundage, and so I eventually decided to do something about it. I joined Weight Watchers, and in order to get some exercise, I bought a bicycle. This was a rather stately, old fashioned bicycle complete with a basket, which I duly named Miss Marple.
I truly loved Miss Marple, and to my surprise, loved riding her too. For the first few days, I biked everywhere, and covered some ridiculous number of miles in the first week. Then I got into a right of way dispute with a car on a roundabout, which in the natural order of things, was won by the car.
Queue several months of laying on the couch waiting for swelling to subside and £10,000 worth of surgery (thanks, mum!) to take out various bits and replace them with pins, plates and definitively non-kosher elements of pig cadaver. This was followed by several more months of physical therapy, wheelchairs, walkers, crutches and a walking stick which still puts in an occasional appearance (hi, Podcamp!), especially if I am having hip pain, there are stairs, or I am unfamiliar with the terrain.
Needless to say, I no longer ride a bicycle. In fact, my husband made it a condition of our marriage that I agree to never, ever ride a bicycle again, and were I to get on a carousel that had bicycles instead of horses, I think he’d probably be legitimately worried that I’d somehow manage to pitch off it and break something. Probably something very expensive.
Despite my two wheeled travails, however, I am now asking if anyone in the Cork area has a bicycle they’d be willing to loan me. But you can unman the panic button (or bicycle horn) because it isn’t for me. The lovely and delightful Guillermo Moreno from Chile will be doing his semester abroad here in Ireland. He’ll be staying with us from the end of December to the middle of March, and we’d quite like to equip him with a loaner cycle even though the weather will be utterly miserable.
You know, for for fresh air, green grass, and unpolluted sunshine rainfall.
So, if you have a bicycle sitting in a shed suitable for a 5’7″ (1.7m) male and you’d be willing to send it to Chez Road Accident, you can do it safe in the knowledge that I will not be riding it. It will, however, be suitably stored, locked, and covered by household insurance. As will Guillermo, who I’ve already checked has travel health insurance.
Just in case.
05 Oct 2008
| In: Domesticities |
nice article, t
07.10.2008, 12:25 amDrivers these days have no respect for pedestrians, buses or cyclists. They should all be ashamed of themselves >:(
07.10.2008, 2:54 pmI don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone to be so unfortunate with bikes. I remember falling off one in dublin, just as I came up to the traffic lights in Rathmines – luckily I fell towards the footpath rather than into the road so just my pride was hurt!
07.10.2008, 3:54 pmHave a bike but we live in Carlow!
Heh. To be fair, I do think it’s me. I mean, each of these incidents happened within a hours or mere days of gaining access to a bike – it’s not like I’ve logged thousands of miles and just had a proportional number of accidents.
Bike + Sabrina = Disaster.
No more bikes for me!
An amazing story Sabrina. Like Lorna said, I can’t believe anyone had such bad luck with bikes. Hope you stay safer in the future. :)
08.10.2008, 10:35 amWell, I wouldn’t bank on it as I’m rather accident prone.
Tariq (the first commenter), who used to work with me in London, very politely failed to mention the story where I broke my foot at the office.
By falling out a window.