Some day's you should just stay home!

Dedi agreed to join me for a nice bike ride outing today.

First I headed to work to take care of some things and snapped my chain while just coasting along. Got that fixed. Then Dedi and I headed out and noted that her shock was out of air and her rear derailleur was bent. One more trip and got that fixed, but maybe at this point I should have said, let's just stay home...

Instead we headed out to Saint Prex. It was beautiful along the way and I shadowed Dedi on all the roads with traffic. We snapped some pictures along the lake and made a note that this would be a good place to take the Atlanta Brennen's when they come to town.

On the way home, we took trails most of the way, but in Morges there were so many pedestrians, we decided to take the road which had a pretty good sized, well marked bike lane.

As we approached my favorite hill (favorite hill? sick no?) I told Dedi I'd wait for her at the top and I blasted up it. It felt great to work my legs and lungs...I then turned around to ride back up it with Dedi and found her sitting on the side walk, her bike half on half off the road. For those of you worried, she's fine...but I'll get to that in a bit..

I thought, heat stroke? Fatigue? No...she seemed okay...then I saw the scraped knees and elbow and realized she had gone down. As a car passed her, it weaved into her lane just enough to bump her handle bar. Dedi lost control and fell in the middle of the road. A 2nd car then swerved to avoid her, though Dedi thought at first that it had run over her ankle. Turns out not to have been the case...guardian angels were at work.

The driver of the red car stopped...an elderly woman, with a rubber right arm... She seemed a bit out of it. She tried to convince me that she could drive Dedi home but a witness who was biking behind Dedi mentioned to me that the woman had been weaving and had in fact just missed him. So we played it safe and called 117, the equivalent of 911. I'm thinking, this woman should not be driving...

Soon we had the ambulance and police. Dedi was a bit embarrassed by it all, but all in all, we did the right thing...better safe than sorry. Unfortunately the woman then claimed that she did not hit Dedi, that it was the 2nd car...the witness though gave a different story; one that matched Dedi's description. The police then lined up Dedi's bike with the car and sure enough the car's side mirror was cracked and had a black streak that lined up perfectly with Dedi's handlebars.

So at least if there are any problems down the road, we've covered ourselves. Dedi's bike license plate was also current, and this covers any costs that don't get covered by the woman's insurance.

The ambulance then drove away and took Dedi to the hospital in Morges. I started making phone calls to find someone to cart away Dedi's bike when our downstairs neighbors drove by. We packed her bike in their trunk and we both headed home. I was full of adrenaline and was literally flying....my neighbor clocked me at speeds up to 60km/hr. Good thing I didn't get a ticket.

Once home, I was getting ready to head to the hospital when Dedi called and let me know that the police were going to give her a ride home...pretty sweet. They were very nice and took the full deposition from our parking lot.

So all is well that ends well...but I will say, it was quite the shock for both of us... I hope though that we can continue to these mini excursions together. ...we just have to pick days where the stars are better aligned...

Cheers,

Dave