Bikes and Me

I've wanted to get some exercise and have considered riding my bike again. But I'm a wuss about it. Bikes and me don't seem to mix. I've had some major wipeouts. They hurt. I don't want more pain. In Corvallis, I had to quit riding my bike after the neck injury I got when beaten on that psyche ward. Tilting my head up slightly, as one must do on most bikes to see, doesn't cut it with a metal neck plate. I thought about trying to find handle bar extension, to raise up the handlebars so I wouldn't have that issue, but about then my back was too bad to allow me to walk more than a few feet and bike riding was out.

Then two years ago I got back surgery. Then the cataclismic decline of my housing situation occurred and the stress was so extreme I thought I was going to die. I didn't recover well from the stress of the latest move. Still haven't actually.

I have not been the same since the move. Something about it, the way it happened, the injustice and the unbelievable stress, physical and emotional, wore me down. Living here in Albany now, I don't like it here. Nowhere to get away. I've been really in a state of depression since moving here. The animal issues over here are huge, too.

The car's worn out, with over 100 thousand miles on it and badly in need of many repairs. I need backup transportation. I don't shop in Albany, however, except to get wood pellet fuel at Coastal, but the moment it starts being available again at Winco, I'll be getting it there, since it is far cheaper than at a feed store. I use wood pellet fuel for cat litter, since it is cheaper than cat litter. The point is, using a bike to do shopping isn't going to be something I do, since the only things I buy are cat food, cat litter and human food. Those are heavy items and I buy them all twice monthly at Winco.

I used to go to Winco in Corvallis when I lived there, two or three times a week. This also gave me a bit more contact with the human race, and I do miss that. Because of gas prices and food prices, my trips shopping for food and cat food, are limited to once or twice a month now. This makes me plan more, make lists, which is good, but unfortunately it cuts down on contact with humans, too.

And, I worry about what I will do when the inevitable happens and the car dies. How will I get what I need and survive. This is a wasteland over here in Albany. There is no sense of community, no bike paths, no way to recreate. I do worry about what I will do when my car dies.

Biking is not a way out over here, like it was for me in Corvallis.

I lived without a car in Corvallis for many many years. I didn't have the money to own a car. I used the bus system sometimes, but you couldn't carry much on the bus and it was extremely time consuming, given the spread out nature of shopping in Corvallis. There are upsides to malls, in that one can get everything they need at the various stores without trying to ride all over town on a convaluted bus system, requiring half hour waits here and there in bus shelters and actually, a lot of expense, unless you had a monthly pass.

I walked and I rode my bike. I had a job in south town for a few months, way down on Wake Robin, part time, a few hours a day, cleaning at a boarding kennel. Talk about dirty jobs. I wore raingear and boots inside the kennel, and cleaned up shit and urine and washed down the kennel floors with a solution. I cleaned the outside kennels, too. Breaks were at an outside table. Bathroom was a porta potty.

I rode my bike to work. It was five miles or so one way is all. I had two spectacular wrecks that caused more injury to my bike than to me. One was during a winter ice storm. I tried putting on my brakes rounding a corner and I slid, maybe thirty feet, kind of half falling over throughout the slide and finally hitting the ground and sliding on. Because there was gravel mixed into the ice, I got road burn, on my legs, arm and one side of my face. I also had to push my bike the rest of the way to work.

The other wreck involved dodging a car that pulled into my space and hitting the curb, crashing up over it onto the sidewalk. That was exremely painful, but I didn't break anything.

I had to quit the job at the kennels. Seems I was severely allergic to dog urine and hair and the cleaning agent. I broke out in rashes all over my body. My eyes would swell so badly I could barely see. I tried to hide this from my boss, but finally ended up at the doctor's office and he said I'd die if I continued the job. My boss fired me then, said he didn't want to find me dead in the kennel. I loved the job, even though it was very smelly and dirty. I became depressed after losing it.

Anyhow, back to the bike wrecks.

I went over my handlebars face first once, right in front of the bus shelter on fifth. That was probably the most embarrassing wreck. People came out of the shelter to see if I was ok. I wasn't but I said I was, then limped into the alley and muffled my screams of pain into my hands. Very painful wreck. I hurt my ankle, shoulder and knee, but nothing major. Within two weeks, I felt ok again. The bike was badly mangled, however, and I didn't ride it again for a long time.

I'd had two wrecks even before that, both involved cars turning right without looking and running me onto the curb. Fortunately, I had been alert to the possibility both times and avoided extreme injury.

Then came the wreck the first time I tried to ride in Albany, when a pickup full of young men, ran me off the road, deliberately, stopped briefly laughing their heads off, then roared off. Guess it freaked me out, that people would do that on purpose. Guess it spooked me. I haven't ridden since.

That's why I'm a bike wuss now. I only want to ride on bike paths, no cars near me, but we don't have bike paths in these parts. I should probably try to get back in the saddle so to speak, but all I think about when I look at my bike is pain.

I know, what a wuss I am.