Semi-Wordless Wednesday: a Bike Boo-Boo

I tweeted this image last Monday:

Caption: "To the woman in the white car on your cell phone not paying attention to anything: please be aware that you are not the only one on the road. (Bike’s fine. I’m fine. This is the worst of it.)"

A week later, it looked like this:

I also had a scraped up palm and a few scraps on my elbow. After I showered off after the incident, I had to use our needle-nose tweezers to pull out 2 small embedded rocks from my knee. That was fun.

OK, ok... I know this is a "Wordless Wednesday" post, but here's a little more of the details. I was out down the Greenway Trail just past "the lakes" about to cross that bigger road before the Nordic Ware factory. I *pulled to a complete stop and clipped out* with my left foot (worth noting). No cars to my right, and a line of cars to my left but with the lead car going VERY slow. I assumed that meant "oh hi cyclist - go ahead." I gave a "thank you wave" and clipped in to cross the road. I immediately glanced up and saw that the driver had NOT seen me and was NOT driving slow to let me cross - she had her phone up to her face and was holding up traffic because she was completely distracted by whatever was on her phone. I had barely started, but I stopped right away and fell in the grit in the gutter (still clipped in) as she rolled right past me without ever seeing me. Jeez. She is NOT totally to blame for me falling, but in this scenario, her phone up to her face as she goes half the speed limit is a big issue. (AKA: illegal.)

My other knee was MUCH sorer when I fell while running last month - this is more of a superficial scrape, whereas last month's was a HARD fall. Damn my beat-up knees.