My bike odometer reads 800+ miles — mostly from 2009 commutes. 800 miles without incident — unless you count slipping on the ice a couple of times back in January. But yesterday my streak of safe riding ended.
I was on the way home, pumped about all the exciting things going on at MetroPed and about being off for a few days. Today is Baby McPhee’s due date — our first child — and I want to be around for it. So you’d think I’d be extra cautious on my ride home, right?
Not exactly. Riding down Sherman Street in Cambridge, I was paying more attention to wrapping my camera strap around my wrist than to the line of traffic waiting at the signal at Walden Street. Suddenly a green Civic pulled out of line — and right in front of me — to cut through the Masse’s Hardware parking lot. I mashed the front brake to avoid plowing into the side of the Honda. The front tire stopped, but the rest of the bike, including me, kept going, and there I was, in slow motion, somersaulting over the handlebars.
I wasn’t going very fast since the light was red and I’m not one of those “the rules don’t apply to me” bikers. The fall was embarrassing, at best, for me, but my camera suffered what appears to be a fatal blow. I was cradling that trusty Canon PowerShot A610 in my right hand, which I unfortunately used to break my fall, jamming the lens into the camera body.
So I leave you, faithful readers, with one of my loyal companion’s last photos, above, of Wenzday and John at the shop just before I left.
Rest in pieces, dear friend!
By the way, the driver did stop to make sure I was OK.