I'm not sure what name I'll give the new frame. My first bike, the one I rode two Bike MS's on and met my soulmate and wife (same person) while crashing, was the Foolkiller or Foolkiller Express depending on my mood.
All of a sudden, by accident...
I was riding home from some freegan chestnut harvesting Corinna had done on the bike trail that runs along Parallel. It's not my favorite trail. In fact it sucks, old, neglected asphalt over tree roots.
Asphalt needs compression to hold up and neither bikes nor joggers provide compression. This is one thing in a place like Johnson County where there is a tax base capable of digging it up and redoing it every so often. It's quite another in an area that borders the dodgy areas of KCK. These are some of the roughest trails I've ever ridden and consequently I rarely ride them.
So when the trail forked and Corinna veered left (which was the opposite direction from home, where I wanted to go), I stayed right. I'd fallen behind, but it looked like I would beat her to the street going my way. I might have to climb a sudden hill, but I was gambling the distance mattered more than the grade.
As I got closer to the street I saw something. Stairs. Call me naive, but even on a badly maintained and barely designed bike trail, I didn't expect stairs.
In 20/20 hindsight, I should have ditched. Right or left of the stairs, I might have biffed, but no harm.
I grabbed a handful of brake and almost stopped before my front tire connected with the staircase.
Then my groin connected with my headset or bar-end shifter, I'm not sure which, and I connected with my full vocabulary of loud, vulgar invective.
I knew I'd be sore from the impact, but I figured it was more of a near miss than a real crash. I was still upright, I was just startled, mildly injured, pissed.
But then I couldn't get my handlebars straight. My front wheel didn't clear the frame.
I just recently bought a new fork, uncut, to help get my handlebars up, and it seemed that fork was bent.
I couldn't even walk the bike normally, I had to hold the front wheel off the ground while walking the dog. Corinna left me with Sheba to go back and get the car, and she thought I should stay put, but that didn't feel right. A dark side street, sitting still, clearly stranded, seemed the wrong way to play it.
So I walked with the dog, holding the front end of the bike up until I'd passed a creepy liquor store (and it's heckling crew of regulars) and wound up at an intersection that was at least well lit and fairly busy. A place where cops my pass by before morning anyway.
I called Corinna to let her know where I was at. There was some discussion about whether she could bring me a backup bike and we'd ghost-ride the Tall Pale Hooker home, but really, this bike wasn't even walkable, let a lone ghost-rideable. She didn't seem to believe me: her natural inclination is to avoid cars. She hadn't driven in three weeks, and before that it might have been a couple of months. She's ghost-ridden her own bike home from River Market Cyclery, a good five miles. But it's wheels both agreed about which way to go and even at that it was a feat.
I saw my car, and figured the cavalry had arrived. None too soon, either, because a woman on the corner was yelling about me. I won't say she was a crack whore, but she seemed confused about whether I was a cop and what the hell I was doing interfering with her normal way of making a living.
Then I saw my car pull through the intersection and move on. I thought she was just going past the divider to turn around, but minutes started to stack up and eventually even the crack whore left me alone and moved on.
I called my wife maybe nine times. I texted a couple. Nothing.
The passers-by made me feel more and more like I was on the set of a zombie movie.
Turns out, Corinna didn't see me when she passed, and she'd inadvertently left her phone at home when she headed out in my car. Realizing she didn't have her phone, she had rolled down the windows so she'd hear me if I hollered at her, but I hadn't hollered since I thought I was in plain sight. She was looking for me even while I was wondering why she didn't turn around and come back to get me.
That was all just misunderstanding. But that was nothing compared to my surprise when I took my bike in so they could swap out my broken fork when the new one came in and realized that the fork wasn't half the issue. Caton, who built my front wheel, was mighty proud that it hadn't given out on this adventure. But if I'd wrecked my wheel instead of my frame, I'd be out half the money.
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