What a ride!

Monday evening Sandy, Lauren, and I decided to go for a ride.  It was a little windy, but other than that it was a perfect afternoon for a ride.  We rode from Lauren's house to Trinity Park.  We had to cross University, which at the time seemed like the most dangerous part of the ride.   We followed the trail north to the stockyards.  Then we backtracked a couple miles and headed west to Gateway Park.  We had gone about 15 miles and were feeling great.  The sun was still up, the river was full, the sky was perfectly blue with white accents, and we practically had the trail to ourselves.  As we headed home, we approached an area of the trail that formed a "u" with the bottom of the "u" going under a bridge.  The three of us were engaged in conversation and riding in a clump as we curved under the bridge.  We were stunned to find two men heading straight towards us.  The next few seconds was all a blur as 5 bikes tried to share a space made for 2.  Lauren had to maneuver towards the right to avoid a collision.  She didn't quite make it and hit one of the men and was flipped over her bike and onto the ground in front of me.  I swerved to avoid her.  Sandy wasn't able to avoid Lauren and went down as well.  I got off my bike and stared at Lauren and Sandy in shock and disbelief.  My moment of frozenness was broken by Sandy asking me to get the bike off of her.  So I did.

Showing off Sandy's scraped knee and my hand

Then one of the 5 homeless men who had been sitting under this particular bridge enjoying the weather and the river, jumped down and screamed emphatically "Oh my gosh!  Are you okay?  I've got a cell phone you can use" repeatedly.  Then the men who we had collided with, who seemed to have fared better than us, came to assess the damage, apologize, and help.  Lauren fell mostly in the grass and didn't have any scrapes, but bruises and swelling quickly followed.  Sandy's leg and knee were scraped and covered in blood.  One of the men rushed to get the water bottle from his bike and began squirting her leg down.  Then one of the other homeless men offered Sandy some antiseptic.  Is it "Hydrogen Peroxide?" she asked.  "Well, its just like it" he answered as he rushed off to where he had been sitting under the bridge to retrieve it.  He had a hard time finding it and Sandy decided she didn't really need it anyway.  I was shocked when I looked down and saw my hand covered with dark red blood.  I asked for some of the water to squirt my hand off and wondered aloud "Why am I bleeding - I didn't fall off my bike?"  After much discussion, I realized one of the guys' bikes or possibly Lauren's bike must have brushed me and cut my hand in the chaos.

Lauren and Sandy had the worst injuries, but they were still
willing to pose for a picture as we waited for a ride 

Amazingly there were no broken bones.  So we rode off and debated whether to ride the full distance back or cut through downtown.  Lauren's bike was making a strange noise and was difficult to ride so we stopped to reevaluate.  When we tried to spin her front tire, it went less than 1/100th of a rotation.  Her wheel was bent and therefore rubbing against her brake.  The men had turned around, saw we were stopped, and came to help.  They were able to loosen the brake and make the bike rideable.  So, we began pedaling again when Sandy called out, "I have a flat."  We decided that about 15 miles was plenty long enough for this ride and called a couple of friends to come pick us up.  Thanks Janel and Brooke!