I crashed my bike yesterday. Yes, the shiny new one. Neither the bike nor I sustained any serious damage, but it was awfully surprising and unpleasant. I was riding west down John Street when a car at the stop sign on 14th pulled out in front of me. I saw the driver look in my direction just before she started moving; I think she simply didn’t notice me. I had just enough time to brake hard, realize I was going to crash, and bail out, without hitting the car. I slid along the road, tearing up my jeans and ripping the heel off my boot, but the safety gear did what it is supposed to do and my skin remained intact.

I came to a stop next to a bus travelling the opposite direction, and people started taking care of me before I had really registered what was going on. Within seconds, the driver called 911, a nurse who happened to be on the bus ran over and started checking me out, a couple of other passengers picked up my bike and rolled it somewhere safe, and two people picked me up by the shoulders and carried me to the curb so I wouldn’t have to put any weight on my leg. The fire department arrived moments later, and determined that I hadn’t broken anything.

The bike is basically fine, though the left-side peg is mangled to uselessness, the left grip is smashed, and both of the turn signals are broken. It has various other cosmetic damage, though the exhaust header, engine, and tank all escaped road rash. Pretty disappointing to have scraped up a bike I just bought… but everything still works, so I guess I came out OK.