Near misses past & present

Just wanted to share a quick “random” story related to a fantastic scramble of North Twin Sister last April before the fall. 

I had near miss on this trip.  We brought bicycles for the approach up and back down a long forest road.  My front brakes had become inoperable during our drive to the trailhead when they got hung up with another bike on the rack, so I was coming down the forest road with just my back brakes.  They got hot and eventually stopped working (!!) on a long, straight, narrow, steep down-grade.  I was unable to stop or slow down and could not help but accelerate down the road.  I was totally freaking out and thought I was about to be dead (or at least severely injured). 

Literally the only thing that saved me was that at the end of this long straight away was a wider than usual turn with fresh gravel spread liberally across the road. I was going fast at that point, but somehow as a last ditch last chance, I side-slipped and lay the bike down, and came down hard and fast on my leg, hip, fore-arm, elbow, shoulder and head (the bike helmet saved me as well).  I got up cautiously testing for breaks, but found only significant road rash on all parts (and miraculously the bike was on one piece as well)!  The bike was inoperable so I walked it the rest of the way, and thankfully I was close to the trailhead at that point so it didn’t take too long.  I was bleeding in a bunch of places, so when I got back to the cars I put on a coat and bandana so it wasn’t obvious (I was embarrassed about the accident --- and I was OK --- so I chose not worry everybody, . . . it had been such a cool trip and I didn't want to be a downer).      

The week after I got back to Seattle I fixed the front brakes and replaced both sets of brake pads, then did a quick test ride to make sure all systems were “go” before parking the bike in the garage.  It hadn’t been used again until this last weekend, when I rode it from Ballard to The Mountaineers Program Center and back.  I’ve been wanting to expand my workout routine, but needed to prove to myself that I could complete the round trip.  The weekend test ride was successful, so this morning I commuted to the Mountaineers for real and afterward brought the bike into the office (common staff-member practice) for the day.

This afternoon after returning from a meeting, people sitting close to my desk said they were surprised when my bike’s back tire exploded!  While replacing the innertube, I inspected the tire and discovered the tire-wall was worn thin and had finally given way in one place.  “Odd,” thought I, while adding just enough air pressure to ride on the tire from The Mountaineers to Recycled Cycles in Fremont.  I arrived at 6:58pm (they closed at 7pm), bought a new tire & innertube and had them install both on the rear rim.  While the technician was doing the work, we got to talking about how a tire might randomly explode like that, and he said I probably “hit something” or maybe "my back brakes may have been mis-aligned and were rubbing on the tire.” 

Hmmmm, . . . thinking back to when I last used the bike, it finally became obvious what happened.  Can you believe the tire held out for three trips between Ballard and The Mountaineers and finally gave out while sitting motionless by my desk?!  Had it blown this morning while riding at speed, I’d probably be back at Harborview right now!  Turns out that bike back tire saved me twice.

I am so lucky!