Ouch!

Today's ride was a little shorter than usual. Why? The answer is twofold:

1. My tailbone is still sore from my fall last weekend. I rode to and from work all week, and it felt OK, but last night it started to hurt again, so I decided to take it easy today. I rode up the big hill (I always try to ride at least this one hill, because it rates as a "climb" according to the Map My Ride web site.) Although my butt hurt, I thought I would keep going a little longer, but then I noticed something...
2. My front brake was rubbing on the wheel. So, I headed east, rode to the next Range Road and then back to town. After arriving home and looking more closely at my bike, I noticed that the hand grip is slightly damaged, and the penny dropped: when I fell, I must have knocked the front wheel out of line. Bummer! I have one year's worth of free adjustments at the bike shop, so I'll take it in, but I have a feeling they are going to see the clipless pedals, look at the damaged hand grip, and guess exactly what happened. How embarrassing. Maybe they'll be too polite to say anything.

Anyway, so I rode 25 km, a far cry from my usual 50-60. It took me a long time, partly because of my sore butt. 

But also, during my first three minutes of riding I encountered a street sweeper. I was going faster than he was and soon found myself in a cloud of dust, so I decided to stop and wait for him to get out of my path. 

Once I got going, I was so nervous about stopping that I was afraid to go very fast. I also made myself stop several times, just to prove to myself that I can indeed do it without falling. 

As I was coming home I got stuck at a red light that doesn't change unless there is a car at the intersection. This is the same intersection where I fell. I wanted to avoid it, but made myself face my fear and go through there. Turns out a bike is not heavy enough to register on the sensor, so the light stays red indefinitely. A truck finally came along and rescued me, but I now have more than one reason not to take that route home again! 

On top all this, there was a mighty northwest wind, making sure I kept my speed down. All in all, it was not one of my better days on two wheels.

As I rode the last stretch I did see something funny -- a guy was doing something on the back of a delivery truck and all of a sudden, he fell backwards onto the road, landing flat on his back. At first I was afraid he was hurt, but he didn't stay down more than a second; he hopped up, dusted himself off and went back to work. Truly a kindred spirit!