Bad Karma?

Saturday was a beautiful mid-winter day...temps in the 40s...no wind. Perfect day for my first ride of 2010, so I set out on my fixie for what would be about an 18 mile ride. Oh how I wish the ride had been as perfect as the day!

What happened? No more than 2.5 miles into this ride I had words with a motorist as I carefully (I thought) entered a T intersection to make a left hand turn. I had come to a complete stop and proceeded when I thought it was safe to go. Apparently I did not see an oncoming car to the right who came to a stop despite my avoidance maneuver and felt the need to call me out. The incident did not escalate beyond the initial exchange of words, but as I pedaled away I couldn't help but think that the whole incident could have been avoided if I had been more careful. It really bothered me that I had allowed myself to lose my temper on this very first ride of 2010. Did I give myself bad karma? You tell me.

A few miles later I'm on a slight downhill stretch of road trying to keep my cadence under control and then, crack...thunk!! My natural inclination was to stop pedaling but on a fixed gear bike that means you get lifted off the seat. Guess what? No seat! The saddle had snapped off the seat post!!!!! Luckily for me there was no traffic passing by when this occurred and I was able to ditch my bike into the snow on a nearby front lawn.

I feel real lucky to walk away from this accident mostly unscathed except for a deep contusion on my inner thigh where I initially landed on the broken seat post. It could have been a LOT worse...by less than an inch if you know what I mean!

Now I have a new cycling goal for 2010...try to maximize good karma! I want to have a large reservoir of good karma in reserve for the rest of my cycling days!!

The bike, post accident:

The saddle with broken post:

The bib knickers with punture hole:

Bike Noob had an interesting post on Tuesday: Bikewise – A Potentially Valuable Resource

This morning, thanks to a link from An Old Guy on Two Wheels, I came across a web site called Bikewise. This isn’t your usual biking advocacy, biking avocation site. It’s all about cataloging bike crashes, hazards, and thefts to make biking safer. According to the site, “It’s estimated that 75% or more of all crashes go unreported. We believe that by gathering detailed information on how and why crashes happen, we’ll be able to ride smarter.”

Bikewise is based in the Seattle area, but accepts crash reports from all over the country. The biker submitting the report is asked to include information about the circumstances of the crash, road and weather conditions, and perhaps most importantly, lessons learned from the crash.

I agree that collecting data on how and why crashes happen will lead to smarter riding.

I work for a large A&E firm with a large construction division. In my own work over half my projects are related to hazardous waste sites while the remainder are typically in an industrial setting. Several years ago our CEO decided to make safety the company's top priority. The goal: to lead our industry in safety. They implemented a series of mandatory training programs and required monthly safety reporting along with project financials. An expansive incident reporting system was rolled out, and quite frankly, they beat us over the head with safety information on almost a daily basis. At the time, many of us were non-believers. We had to be brought along kicking and dragging our feet. But you know what? The collection of data on safety incidents and near misses, and the formal development of lessons learned, has lead to a safety ethic that I do believe is tops in our industry. The last few years we have ranked higher in safety than most of our competitors...it has saved us money by driving our insurance rates down...and it has DIRECTLY resulted in the company winning several major new corporate contracts. Most of all, we now work smarter and safer than we ever have before. The KEY to making this happen, beyond the CEO's mandate, was the collection and analysis of data on all the types of incidents that were occurring. It worked!

Folks can see an example of how the site works by reading Bike Noob's post. Or you can go directly to the Bikewise website.

One more thought. The safety program and reporting of incidents where I work was not voluntary...the Bikewise approach obviously is. Our own personal cycling crash incidents do not occur frequently so participating on Bikewise is not a time-consuming endeavor. But it's a smart one that could pay dividends in the future once enough data is collected.

Where in the World is Matt Lauer?

While the cycling community is all a buzz about the Lance Armstrong crash (what a bummer), another cycling incident hits a little closer to home IMO. Apparently Today show host Matt Lauer was out riding over the weekend on Long Island and had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting a deer...which I guess he did by being thrown over the handlebars...OUCH!! News reports indicate that he was going fast on a downhill stretch when a deer came out of nowhere. He suffered a separated shoulder as a result of the crash. He was wearing a helmet and no head injury is being reported.

That just got me thinking of all the close calls I've had with deer in my area when I've been driving in the car. Just this weekend a friend was telling me about two deer that had darted out in front of her on Route 152 earlier in the week. It completely startled her because they had never seen deer in this particular area before.

Until now, I haven't really heard of any close encounters between deer and cyclists...at least in the local area. But it certainly makes sense given the close calls with cars that cycling accidents with deer are VERY POSSIBLE. I'll sure be thinking about deer on my next few bike rides...especially if they're early morning rides.