Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Wipeout

Cycling can be dangerous.  Cycling road racing is said to be the most dangerous sport in the world. Just ask a Tour de France rider careening down a mountain descent at 60 mph or in the mad sprint to the finish. Tragedies on two wheels are not uncommon. Wikipedia has a list 

If you are more than a casual bike rider, you have likely experienced a crash landing. Even outside a 176 rider peloton, hazards are manifold. Curbs, loose gravel, ice and mud, potholes, cars, other riders, misjudged curves, bike malfunctions, opening car doors, unexpected obstacles or just plain inattention to your environment.

I have experienced many close calls courtesy of all those various hazards. And I have gone to ground a number of times, but only once have I been put out of action for any period of time because of a crash.  That happened in 2017 when on a So. Minneapolis ride, I unexpectedly came upon 8” water pipes laying across the roadway. Unable to avoid them, I rammed them and took flight over the handlebars. I have no recollection of the (I’m sure) graceful glide over the bars, but the landing is vivid. I came out of that with a badly sprained wrist but happily no head injury.  Put me on the shelf for a couple weeks. 


That was my worst biking day - until last Thursday. 

I decided to check out Swing Bridge Park and the Mississippi River levels. The bridge is a former double-decker - rail & auto - that crossed the Mississippi in Inver Grove Heights. It has been truncated and repurposed as a sort of pier extending well out into the river. Check it out. It’s a great spot to barge watch. 

Not so great for me that day. As I was pedaling out to the far end, the wheels of my bike slid out and I watched the waves rise up to meet me. Not water. May flies, thousand and thousands of them. As I was falling, the surfer hymn - you know the one if you are of a certain age - with the frenetic drum and guitar riffs, the maniacal laughter and the one word lyric flashed through my brain, all in that 1 second drop into a swarm of writhing bugs turned to grease by my wheels… Wipeout. [That was a Faulkner sentence.]

I crawled from that disgusting mass over to the bridge railing and sat brushing off bugs and fighting back dizziness & nausea and thinking how stupid I had been. I recalled stories of cars sliding into ditches after driving through a swarm of May flies. I knew immediately something not very good had happened to my left ankle, smashed between the fallen bike and the bridge deck, the bugs not providing much of a cushion. I have a lot of experience with ankle sprains from my volleyball playing days, back in time when I could leap high enough to allow landing on another’s foot. 

Deja vu.

After some recovery time, I got back on my bike and rode the 6 miles back to my truck at one foot power. This was my 2nd stupidity and 2 stupids do not make a smart. 



This might have actually been hilarious if it were a tale told to me rather than by me. It would still be funny if I could have survived unscathed.But I was scathed. Turns out my ankle was broken, amazingly the first bone break in my relatively long life. 





So after a 2023 of no riding due to multiple medical issues, here I am in 2024 again on the shelf, awaiting surgery to put pins in my ankle.



Life is hard.

Copyright ©  2024  Dave Hoplin


Monday, July 8, 2024

Deep Thoughts Vol 4


Do you think stroking your chin actually helps brain function?

Why is it that the very wealthy or famous think their notoriety qualifies them as an authority on any subject?

"With the internet, you can have a paranoid fantasy at breakfast and a cult following by teatime."  Quote credit: Must be a Brit. We don't do teatime this side of the pond.

This is frightening. Google has acquired the stupidity of millions of Reddit comments to train its AI technology.

Those optimistic assessments of AI's potential for good reminds me of the early days of social media - and we know how that has turned out.

An Easter service and not a single Easter bonnet.  Another lost tradition. Too bad.

But, of course. Let's leverage Holy Week hawking a $60 God Bless America Bible.

Why do people no longer play croquet?

Sometimes it takes a half-a-day to come up with the word I need to complete a sentence.

I told my wife that mistakes should be embraced. It's how we get experience. She gave me a big hug.

Time is passing me by. I turned to the oldie's station looking for the Everly Brothers and got Bon Jovi.

WWJD is about as far from WWDJTD as you can get.

My annual resolution. I will keep annual weight gain to less than one stone

You have definitely reached old age when thoughts of time are dominated by memories rather than dreams.

After 70, stay vertical at all costs. Falls can kill you.

As we age, continue to learn. Aging is grad school.

"I wanted to read Anna Karenina and everybody else wanted to do stuff in the back of cars." Barbara Kingsolver   Which category did you fall in in your youth? 

I thought she wanted us back in 1950 but I guess it’s actually 1590.  Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, wrote, “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come.”

My old-age fear is not being able to read.

I don't understand annuities.  Give them all your money and then they give it back to you a little at a time.

My fear is that all these climate change deniers really believe it is not a real problem. This is just one of the rampant false beliefs that has me frightened.

“Invaluable” is one of my favorite words. You know, like inaccurate, incurable, invalid, incoherent … And thank you. Your assistance has been invaluable.

Do they still teach history in high school? If so, then why ... oh never mind.

No one is entirely useless.  You can always serve as a bad example.  Credit: unknown.

A rare book is a loaned book that actually gets returned.

As you approach an intersection and the light turns yellow, do accelerate or brake?

Can you explain the symbiotic relationship between mobile homes and tornados?

"If you have any friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy."  Dorothy Parker

If you recognize you've forgotten something you should know, it may just be slow retrieval times due to your terra-byte cranial database?

“It is not so much the sight of immorality of the great that is to be feared as that of immorality leading to greatness.”  Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America

If you think you are a deep thinker, you are probably wrong.

I hate the histrionic Star Spangled Banner performances so common at sporting events. Just sing it straight.

"To do good is noble. To tell others to do good is even nobler and much less trouble." Mark Twain

Deep science ... genetic sequencing of the Minnesota State Fair corn dog. https://www.startribune.com/where-will-the-worlds-first-genetic-sequencing-of-a-corn-dog-take-place-at-the-minnesota-state-fair/600370588/

Fathers' Day used to be the day when the most collect calls of the year were made - for those that remember such things.

I did not know Roy Orbison was Norwegian -  born in Vernon, Texas, to Orbie Lee

Soon I'll have garnered enough of these to publish a coffee table book.

Copyright ©  2024  Dave Hoplin