as i lay on an examining table in the emergency room of s.f. general
hospital's fabled trauma ward, my left foot pointing straight up but my
right foot pointing at 3 o'clock, thanks to a nut who flipped a u-turn in
front of my honda cm400c, a young nurse in scrubs walked up and asked how it
happened. i told her. "i ride a bike too," she said grimly. "you know, there
are two types of riders. those who have been down and those who are going
down." then she walked away, doubtless wondering when her day would come.
the scariest part, however, came during the investigation in which a witness
said i came within a foot or two of being decapitated. she said i was saved
because my body, skittering across the roadway like a hockey puck, was
headed for the front wheels of the same car but took a weird bounce instead,
away from the wheels. it was the fourth time i had gone down in 15 years of
hazardous urban riding, all of it extremely cautious, but the last. there is
now a titanium rod in the right leg, from ankle to knee. if the leg ever got
hit again it would not be broken, it would be bent. and that means it also
likely would be gone. art '82 westy