Today something happened while bike riding that might qualify me as a “seasoned bike rider” (at no more than 8 months into riding after 40 years). Even though it didn’t really involve riding the bike itself as much as a situation. It was also a great example of the “Butterfly Effect”
i’d ridden a group ride Wednesday, and a few more miles near the house before dark. For Thursday I figured i’d get in a few miles from the house, not much, but at least something. Put it off though, so windy, over 20 mph. that I thought maybe it’d be less windy much later, so I waited. Finally got riding about 6:20, was going to head to a park to do some laps, but my legs were not feeling in great shape. I was a bit surprised, didn’t seem like i overdid it Wednesday. Well, also there was a lot of wind, but still, I didn’t have a full headwind. So, I bailed on riding to the park and turned around. Getting near the house I figured to ride a bit more, and kept going. Was going to turn around then decided if I made it up a short hill I could then manage another 1/2 mile and that’d add another mile to the wimpy total for the ride (going to be even windier Friday). So, I made it up that little hill and rode the crest.
On the other side of the road up ahead a few hundred feet, I saw a couple of riders stopped. A man and woman about 20-something. The guy had some sort of problem but they were about to get moving again when I went past heading the other way. I rode past them and did another 1/4 mile then turned around. On the way back, I saw them stopped again, a 1000 feet from where I’d last seen them. As I neared them, the guy got on his bike and they were riding slowly.
I rode past them and as I did I said “I have tools if you need help”.
Within
one second….. the left pedal on the guy’s bike fell onto the road!
“Okay, I guess you need help”, I said, as I turned around. Fortunately, all he needed was an allen wrench to tighten the pedal to the crank. And among my bike tools, indeed my most-used, is a multi-key Allen wrench , metric. So, I let him borrow that, and in a minute it was tightened and they were able to ride on. They had said they’d get an Allen wrench set, I pointed out to get a Metric set since most bikes use metric, certainly his bike did.
And so, since I took up riding nearly 8 months ago, that’s the first time I’ve helped someone with a bike problem on the road. Fortunately, a very easy simple one (stopping and loaning a tool), and not something time consuming, complex, and messy like fixing a flat…. on a rear tire.
In other news, I’ve ridden 218 miles so far this year (147 in March). Have done 4 group rides in the last month or so. My regular Wednesday and Sunday group rides had not started up until now. Two of the “other” group rides I did, were pretty hard, “C” rides that were more like B/C rides. The last of those I was totally exhausted, as in had to sit in my car for 15 minutes rather than load my bike as I was feeling light-headed type exhausted…..and I won’t ride with that group anymore.
So yesterday’s Wednesday ride with my regular group was so great. The pace was indeed “C” and since there were very few inclines (mostly for bridges across roads), I was able to ride near the front most of the time. And the times we did stop for others to catch up, none of it was for me.
And that’s the other thing, this group ride frequently stops for catch-up, not blindly riding on and on and on relying on a sweeper to keep the last rider from being lost no matter how far away the leader rides the group at a faster-than-C pace.
BTW - I mention the Butterfly effect since so many choices were made to end up on the road at the right place and time when that rider needed help. The last time a major Butterfly Effect event occurred to me was a few years ago when I got off work at about 10:30 PM when a truck beat me to an intersection by 5 seconds. So, I had to follow that truck. We both stopped facing the East, to turn left (North) onto an intersection to a highway, then he turned left while the turn left arrow light was still red, and an oncoming car headed west was coming in at high speed. I could see for seconds what was about to happen, as I could not believe that truck was turning, the oncoming car so obvious. The car tried to swerve to the right some, but still hit the truck and spun it around, but the car also bounced off and hit two cars (North of the east-west road, pointed south) waiting at the intersection. Several people injured. I do not know what that truck driver was thinking, possibly drunk, or possibly that the left turn arrow light behaved differently at night than in daytime (stupid programming choice if a persons is used to it being a different way in daytime). But still no excuse for him turning without seeing that oncoming car.
Now, had I started my car 10 -15 seconds earlier, I’d have beat that truck to the first intersection, and would have been ahead of him. So when we got to the intersection where the accident happened, I’d have waited, safely turned, and he’d have followed me. Sometimes when you think about that stuff you can also wonder how many times you made a “Butterfly Effect” choice that kept you out of trouble, not because it might have been a high-percentage choice to be right (like not going out in a storm), but just some random chain-of-event choices that otherwise might have turned out badly. Or, you made a really dumb choice but lucked out. Or, could be some great Butterfly Effect chain of events such as leading to meeting your future wife…… I’m still waiting on that one…..
- George Gassaway
