May 25th, 2005
111700545929696022
A short, surreal moment
On the way in to work today I was heading down the crosswalk at the intersection of Kyu-Yamate and Rt. 246 and I just happened to pull left around a group of oncoming pedestrians at the same time someone else was performing a mirror maneuver from behind them.
“Yield to tonnage” applies to bicycles as well I guess, and so my basket and fender job beat his micro-wheel foldable bike, but it was pretty clear there was going to be some kind of mess unless I did something. This wasn’t a series of clear thoughts though, it was just a reaction, so I poured on the brakes and somehow with my twenty-five year old reflexes managed to jack knife my bike so the rear wheel swung out to the left, bringing me orthogonal to my previous course and his front wheel actually slid under the clearance of my frame behind the fork, so all that happened was a little tap of handle bars and a brief face-to-face encounter. He immediately said in a meek voice “I’m sorry.” and I reflexively spat out “Gomen, gomen.” (Sorry, sorry.) as I kicked the tail back out behind me and started moving again. This all took place in about a second in a half. I probably I should have like stopped to see if he was all right, but since it was just a fender tap and shock, I guess it wasn’t any big deal. It did make me wonder though if a more serious collision occurred would I actually stop to see if the other person was ok.
I’ve been thinking lately that I really want my old Schwinn World Traveler back, even if the rear wheel is run over and bent. I guess I either convince my dad to go to a lot of trouble or I find great success in Japanese net auctions.
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