It was Bound to Happen…

…sooner or later.

No blood. No foul. All is good….

Thank goodness for riding buddies with iPhones or I would not have this to share with you. But I should give you the back story. Yes, there is a back story.

It was a warm, sunny southern day, about 81 degrees outside. Beautiful day for a bike ride. I was out with the Triple Threat Girls: Meet…

J-Ninja-who was clearly confused about whether or not we were biking or running today…

And Breaking Pace-

About 17 miles in a squirrel decided he should run down his tree, circle it and rummage on the ground. I guess he was startled by our beauty or our biking flair or our speeeed-who knows for sure. But I saw it look at us and in true squirrel fashion he darted across the street. Why do they do that!? So stupid! I mean really? Run back up your tree if you are scared..Duh. So anyway, we were riding three across, taking up the whole road, it was a quite street. I looked to my right and saw the squirrel dart between Breaking Pace’s front and back tire. Near miss! Between us was J-Ninja and I have no idea how the squirrel got through her, maybe he jumped over her? I just kept telling myself, “Don’t swerve. Don’t swerve. Don’t swerve…” Swerving could have been deadly, I could have crashed after all.

So I did not swerve.

I saw him coming.

I closed my eyes.

BUMP!

I hit him.

Ran right over him with my back tire.

I can’t say whether or not he died, there was no body. He ran for it. I stopped and inspected my bike for blood and I expected to see his tail wrapped up in my spokes (reminded me of when I hit a squirrel with my car in college and when I stopped I saw his tail stuck under my tire and no squirrel body. SAD.). We were laughing but a little traumatized too. After a short stop to regroup and process what had happened we headed on.

I planned to try a route that heads out the back gate of the Air Force Base and connects with our old 16 mile loop around the shooting ranges. We were on our way and about 2 miles in the road was barricaded. Epic fail. Not only that but the road was rough and there were holes, gravel and rocks. Not good when you are on a road bike. I was going slow and trying to turn around when my front tire hit something, a hole or a rock I’m not sure. I came to a halt and proceeded to fall over. There was no stopping it. My feet were stuck in the peddles. As I fell my feet came out and I must have put my hand down to minimize the impact, my wrist is getting more and more sore as the day goes on. I hit the ground and my helmet saved my nugget, seriously. I am a believer in helmets. I should wear one all the time.

J-Ninja said she saw it happening…in slow motion. I got to thinking, if she were a real ninja she probably could have caught me. But maybe not…

I think what Breaking Pace said was, “Hold on! Don’t move let’s assess for neck injuries let me get my phone out and take a picture! Hold my bike J-Ninja!” Nice. I love my friends. In her defense I was laughing pretty hard and truth be told I was pretty proud and I had survived my first fall, my first real life bike crash…and no blood! It was bound to happen. Thank goodness for iPhone cameras.

When I showed Hubs the picture he said, “Is the bike ok?” Ugh, men.

Stats for today:

Bike Ride-1/Amanda-0 & Squirrel-0/Amanda-1

Oh yeah and 41.25 miles!! A complete mileage PR!!! Crazy!!!!

Lessons learned on a 41.25 bike ride to come….and there were quite a few.

Well I am alive and well! More than the squirrel can say. But hey, it was me or him and I chose life. My dad always taught me not to swerve to miss animals. Sure he was talking about in a car but I think the concept applies to bikes too.