Less than 10 minutes into the ride, passing a depressed street neighborhood where kids think (and parents apparently) that playing on the road was just as normal as sago on hot Soya. I’m always careful whenever I bike on public roads wearing safety gear to the teeth, and I am especially aware with jeepneys and crazy pedestrians that the danger is real.
The street was empty with vehicles and the jeep behind me was a good 3 or 4 blocks away. I was almost in the middle of the road just pedaling along when one of the kids about 5 years of age suddenly crossed the street as he was being chased by another kid a few years older than him. Instinctively, as I saw him headed at my direction, I squeezed on my breaks to avoid hitting the bone thinned boy, but he still managed to ram the side of my front wheel (thankfully I did not ran over him)… now this is when the action really began; and I’ll play it to you in slow motion if you will.
As I hit the breaks and the kid grazed the front wheel. My bike was half flying in mid-air with the front wheel still planted but the rear part of the bike was a good 4 or 5 feet from the ground and I was there looking at the hard concrete head on while gripping the handle bars with a clutch as good as a monkey’s. And with a “life flashing before my eyes” moment, I did a quick reflex action veering my whole weight to the left avoiding toppling over the kid and preventing a skull-plant straight in to the cement. I landed on the road with my left side of the body; arm first and bike second which fortunately dissipated the force of the landing but still did not leave me unscathed.
vintage vintaged ;p
As I recovered from the rollover I immediately saw a small cut on my left leg and my feet was stuck between the wheel and the fork (the rollover was semi-violent). I hurriedly disentangled my left foot while looking at the jeep from a good distance behind me. I managed to recover from the shock (in less than 7 seconds, would you believe) and safely bring the bike to the side of the road. Some guy was already clutching the kid while I was asking him if he was alright.
The boy was crying obviously from the shock, I think the big part of it was watching me being hurled in a circusly fashion up in the air and seeing things to be as surreal as it was for him. The kid was ok and a relative came hurriedly to console the boy, worried as hell. By this time a small crowd was already converging over the whole hoopla… and I can hear people jeering and making comments about how the elder let the boy play without supervision in the streets etc (heck! kids shouldn’t be playing there at all.)… Looking back now, I think it was a good thing that I really crashed (and I really mean crashed) trying to avoid hitting the boy. If not for that and the small gush of blood already running on my leg I think the small mob would have focused the blame on me.
I was still shaking and was looking at my hand and leg wound. I stood for about a minute and decided to proceed after seeing that everything was ok with the kid and his relative. The crowd was getting a bit huge and the moment I began pedaling, was the moment they minded their own biz again.
With gushing blood on my leg I pedaled through, I stopped a good 10 minutes after (my extended shock) to check my wound. By this time I noticed that my Ipod nano of 4 years that was strapped on my left arm had a broken LCD from the fall. Bummer Moran! It just keeps on getting better!
A good hour after the incident it started to rain hard, forcing me to take shelter in one of the waiting sheds near Katipunan Ave. I waited for another 15 minutes for the rain to stop, but it didn’t and I eagerly wore my jacket and decided to bike my way to my father’s with the rain pounding heavily on my back.
To cut it short, I arrived quasi-safely at my tatay’s, hanged my shoes to dry and rested my tired legs to sleep.
cloudy day
When I awoke, I can really feel the sting on my leg wound even after pouring alcohol beforehand and applying ointment of sorts. Nothing biggie really, I was able to make it for the bike home safely the following day and was able to take some pics along the way… I even saw a motorbike that got into an accident with an SUV. I was just thankful that it wasn’t me.
…gave me added reason to thoroughly consider my dream of biking SE Asia.
hehe we’ll see….
