Thursday, March 5, 2009

Helen's black cloud...

So Helen is back on her bike this week after a couple of weeks off to heal a messed up shoulder. She's been carefully riding the road bike in hopes of being able to hang onto her mountain bike long enough this weekend to finish her race in FL. Everything was going according to plan....

Tuesday afternoon Mark, Helen and I were headed out for a short spin. We met downtown and decided to ride toward my house and I would then drive Helen back home. Perfect. The sun was shining (finally) and we were happy to be riding.

As we were rolling out through the "Bend" we had some poorly angled railroad tracks to cross. I was first, looked back and saw a car way in the distance. I proceeded to cross the tracks at a steep angle so as not to fall. Helen was behind me and as she went to cross the tracks, the car, who was moving SIGNIFICANTLY over the speed limit, brushed her and forced her to swerve so she didn't get run over. Of course swerving caused her to ride parallel to the tracks and consequently right into them. Of course she immediately fell over. She fortunately was okay (and I expanded EVERYONE'S vocabulary while yelling at the car as it sped off) but we were all really angry. Why do drivers have to be that way??!!! After a quick assessment of any damages (one slightly bent hanger but still rideable) we were off again.

Not two minutes later a very nice man in a pickup truck rolled up, told us that not only had he seen the whole thing, but he had followed the car and gotten the license plate. WELL!!!! Yes, we will call the police. So we did. A very helpful police man came out (lights and sirens) and took the report, license number and informed us that if he could find the car they would take the driver to jail for leaving the scene of an accident among other things. AWESOME!!!! Helen was only slightly concerned about the prospect of having to possibly go to court and testify if the driver was located but she decided that it would be worth it to make the roads one driver safer.

All in all, we were really lucky and it ended up being a good ride. Although road riding sometimes makes me lose my faith in humanity, (one can only be run off the road so many times before getting a little bit bitter), today mostly restored that faith. A very nice driver took the time to do the right thing and the Chattanooga Police were extremely supportive and helpful. Helen is fine, not even a bruise so she'll still get to race this weekend. And we got to enjoy a sunny day outside.

Sometimes it takes a bad incident to make a person realize just how fortunate they are.

Thanks for reading.

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