craneplaneguy
10 kW
The bleeding is almost stopped, almost, probably should get a couple stitches but screw it. Today in a small town 30 miles from my home base, I had a couple crane jobs. With a 2 hour interval between them, so custom made for getting the crane dingy ebike out and run some errands and eat lunch.
My first stop was at a friend's place who lives in his hangar at the airport, and as usual that took a while. Then I rode clear across town to make a bank deposit at the local Wells Fargo. Now time was getting short, but rather then eat a rushed lunch at a fast food joint, I decided to have a good sit down lunch at a good Mexican place I know. After that, it was a balls out dash back across town, at 30+ mph top but mostly mid 20's. Bike is a stock BBSO2 on a Giant 27'5'er. Perfect for zipping around town. City streets, asphalt, but with some ice on the secondary sections and along the sides. See where I'm going here?! What I realized pretty damn quick, that unlike my usual town riding style of hugging the shoulder as much as possible, I could not, due to the ice, so that's when I hit 30 +, just to stay ahead of the few cars on the 25 mph street. Makes sense right?
All went well, and now I'm almost abeam the lot where I left the crane, across the street. The center turn lane is all ice pretty much, but I see that if I turn NOW I can cross over before 3 or 4 approaching cars make me wait. So rather then wait the few seconds for that (plus I had a car behind me I didn't want coming up my ass) I decided to slow down, sub 20, and take the ice at a real oblique angle, as opposed to attempting a right angle turn of course.. I've ridden enough ice this year already to not have a problem with it, but today I failed to note the ice curb about a 1 1/2" high, it wasn't a smooth transition from the asphalt point being. Of course that cocked my front wheel sideways and that was all she wrote. No danger of getting hit or runover anyway, but I started bleeding like a stuck pig from a cut forehead. I instantly got back up, and after I figured out which way the handle bars should face, rode the last 40' to my crane, after telling a nice lady who saw it happen and stopped to see if I was OK, and I told her "Oh yeah, no problem!" I was equal parts pissed off at myself, and embarrassed. By the time I got the bike in the crane box, a 30 second job, a had a pretty impressive pool of blood on the ground, luckily I carry paper towels in the crane so I got things under control while I drove to my 2:00 job, and I made it only 2 minutes late. The building crew was a bit taken aback by my appearance, the blood was still flowing, in my beard, I was mess, but I could run the crane just fine. Badly abraded and bruised knee, forehead gash, bruised left pinkie, and scraped/bruised right ankle, was the final toll. Maybe a black eye in days to come, some major face bruising anyway. The bloodstains on my work jacket just gives me street creds, I work with some rough characters, no big deal there. Oh yeah, NO helmet, sure I wear a helmet, it was home with my two other bikes, I don't carry it in the crane because I don't want to have it there when I need it at home for trail riding! My takeaway from this is, wait for it, to buy ANOTHER helmet, just for the crane, duhhhh!
My second major crash in 2 years of e bike riding, with 2 or 3 more minor but pretty exciting tumbles, and NONE of them involved the e power, ALL were at regular bike speeds, and at the time of the incident, NO power was used. Just straight on regular bike mishaps, and again I am impressed with how these things can beat you up, really kick your ass! Good lesson though, learned a lot and it won't happen again.
My first stop was at a friend's place who lives in his hangar at the airport, and as usual that took a while. Then I rode clear across town to make a bank deposit at the local Wells Fargo. Now time was getting short, but rather then eat a rushed lunch at a fast food joint, I decided to have a good sit down lunch at a good Mexican place I know. After that, it was a balls out dash back across town, at 30+ mph top but mostly mid 20's. Bike is a stock BBSO2 on a Giant 27'5'er. Perfect for zipping around town. City streets, asphalt, but with some ice on the secondary sections and along the sides. See where I'm going here?! What I realized pretty damn quick, that unlike my usual town riding style of hugging the shoulder as much as possible, I could not, due to the ice, so that's when I hit 30 +, just to stay ahead of the few cars on the 25 mph street. Makes sense right?
All went well, and now I'm almost abeam the lot where I left the crane, across the street. The center turn lane is all ice pretty much, but I see that if I turn NOW I can cross over before 3 or 4 approaching cars make me wait. So rather then wait the few seconds for that (plus I had a car behind me I didn't want coming up my ass) I decided to slow down, sub 20, and take the ice at a real oblique angle, as opposed to attempting a right angle turn of course.. I've ridden enough ice this year already to not have a problem with it, but today I failed to note the ice curb about a 1 1/2" high, it wasn't a smooth transition from the asphalt point being. Of course that cocked my front wheel sideways and that was all she wrote. No danger of getting hit or runover anyway, but I started bleeding like a stuck pig from a cut forehead. I instantly got back up, and after I figured out which way the handle bars should face, rode the last 40' to my crane, after telling a nice lady who saw it happen and stopped to see if I was OK, and I told her "Oh yeah, no problem!" I was equal parts pissed off at myself, and embarrassed. By the time I got the bike in the crane box, a 30 second job, a had a pretty impressive pool of blood on the ground, luckily I carry paper towels in the crane so I got things under control while I drove to my 2:00 job, and I made it only 2 minutes late. The building crew was a bit taken aback by my appearance, the blood was still flowing, in my beard, I was mess, but I could run the crane just fine. Badly abraded and bruised knee, forehead gash, bruised left pinkie, and scraped/bruised right ankle, was the final toll. Maybe a black eye in days to come, some major face bruising anyway. The bloodstains on my work jacket just gives me street creds, I work with some rough characters, no big deal there. Oh yeah, NO helmet, sure I wear a helmet, it was home with my two other bikes, I don't carry it in the crane because I don't want to have it there when I need it at home for trail riding! My takeaway from this is, wait for it, to buy ANOTHER helmet, just for the crane, duhhhh!
My second major crash in 2 years of e bike riding, with 2 or 3 more minor but pretty exciting tumbles, and NONE of them involved the e power, ALL were at regular bike speeds, and at the time of the incident, NO power was used. Just straight on regular bike mishaps, and again I am impressed with how these things can beat you up, really kick your ass! Good lesson though, learned a lot and it won't happen again.