Yesterday after work needing to get out and have some physical activity of some kind I mounted the bike for a second day in a row and promptly dismounted. It wasn’t the Achilles that was sore it was the posterior maximus that had endured the previous days bumpy 32K run that gave me pause. Not to be completely off put from exercise I quickly shifted gears and put on my roller blades. It has been a few years but I had my legs in pretty short order and was off for a workout.
How cracks in the pavement are handled in other areas of the world I have no idea but in Quebec they are handled by filling in the cracks with a kind of black rubber cement. This is fine for cars and usually okay for bicycles but for roller blades…not so much. About one and a half kilometers into my skate the front right wheel got was caught in a tarry mess. I started to fall forward, struggled hard to bring my right leg forward and managed to do so with a kick and promptly went over backwards. Fortunately I was only going about 10Kph at the time. The slide was a short one and had it not been for the wrist guards I surely would have no skin left on my hands. The elbows and my already sore posterior took the brunt of the road rash and my left thumb curiously seemed to have been otherwise impacted swelling up in a dark purple throbbing display.
Many people would have turned back at this point but not to be off put I continued on reasoning that the worst had happened the rest would go swimmingly. For the most part the rest of the rather brief workout (12K total) did go well save on the last 200m from home. I came to the intersection of Cardinal and Sources and pressed the pedestrian button. It is a dangerous intersection so I ALWAYS use the button even when I am running. I watched the lights carefully. All lights turned red, the pedestrian sign came on, I waited a count of three before starting across when a silver minivan decided that the red light did not apply to it and ran through the intersection. I had to put my hand out and touch the van to stop myself from running into it. The resulting CRACK sound from my wrist protector hitting the window scared the crap out of me as I am sure it scared the driver who did not even pause but continued on as if nothing had even happened. Other drivers at the intersection did not even blink at the incident. Yowser.
Tonight I am taking the night off from exercises and hope to go for a 50K bike ride tomorrow morning with a neighbour from down the street. We’ll see if I can last.
