Today I decided to ride in my upright cruiser with swept bars and a 3-speed hub.  I wanted a little change of pace from the last few trips I've had to work.  The ride in was great; I had a slight tailwind and soft pedaled the 15 miles.

Coming home was good.  It was the weekend, I was in a good mood and I had a golf date with my wife and two friends I've met while playing (frequently) at the Minneapolis city golf courses.

At 84th and France, I was waiting at the light to turn left.  The light changed and I started to pedal to get up to speed to keep pace with traffic.

*Pop*

Oh, come on!

My chain had broken, so now I'm coasting helplessly through the intersection with a few cars behind me, also wanting to turn left.  I make it through and hop on the sidewalk, tossing my bike in the grass.  Looking back, I see that my chain is lying sadly in the road like a flattened snake.

Waiting for the lights and using the crosswalks, I make my way back to that side of the intersection to retrieve my chain.  As the lights go back to red, stopping traffic in front of my chain, I prepare to make my move.

Great.

A cop car stops on top of my failed chain.  The chain is resting just under the back bumper, so I'm able to get it, but I wonder what the cop will think when someone walks into traffic directly behind him, ducks down for a split second, then walks back to the side of the road.  I guess I'll find out.

I get over to the chain, retrieve it and get back to the sidewalk without any excitement.  Using the lights and the crosswalks, I return to my bike on the far side of the intersection.

During that time, one of my co-workers rides by and checks in with my to make sure I'm alright.  I explain the situation and ask if he's got a chain tool.  No dice.

So now, I'm sitting with my bike, trying to reach my wife by phone and I notice a cop car turning onto France out of a residential street that wouldn't usually get frequented by patrol cars.  I bet it's the cop that stopped on top of my chain looping back to check me out.

Sure enough, while he's stopped in the left turn lane he calls over to me to make sure I'm alright.  I briefly explain my situation and that I've got things covered (while another of my co-workers rolls up to check on me).  The officer helpfully informs me of the nearest bike shop, then drives away with the green light.

Now, I'm interested in trying to get home and salvage a fun evening of golf.  I finally get in touch with Ericca and tell her the situation and what I'm trying to work out.  A couple more calls later, and I've got things lined up.

My buddy Justin will stop by the house and pick up Ericca and our clubs in his pickup truck.  They'll come down to pick me up, then we'll drive over to the course and meet Dan there.

With all of that lined up, it's simply passing time until they get here.  Pushing my bike, I cross I-494 on the sidewalk and head to the gas station where they're going to meet me.  Using their restroom, I change into shorts and my golf shirt, which I had conveniently worn to work.

A half hour later, they show up and we make our way to the course, meeting Dan, who beat us there by just 10 minutes.  Everything ended up working out surprisingly fine.

Through this experience, I was reminded of a good lesson and I also learned a new one:
- First, always carry enough tools and supplies (tubes/chain/etc) to get you home.
- Second, when you're at the gas station with a half hour to kill, no matter how good Gatorade, Gummy Life Savers and Combos look, don't buy and consume all three at once. 

Riding home from work last night I got hit by a car.

The intersection it happened at is by far the worst one on my 15 mile route.  It's a combination of bad sight lines, one way and two way streets, poor traffic flow and anxious drivers.  Every time I ride northbound through that intersection, I cross my fingers and hope for the best.  Yesterday, it didn't pan out.

Because of a one way street, northbound cyclists are forced to cross on the sidewalk.  I typically time my passing through the intersection so that there's traffic screening cars wanting to pull out, preventing them from going anywhere.

I saw that I had a huge truck coming as my screen, so I started through the intersection.  I didn't realize that the truck was going really fast trying to make it through a stale yellow.  It cleared the intersection a lot faster than it should have, and the eager driver to my left wanted to get in immediately behind the truck.

I rolled into the intersection, the driver, looking left timing his entrance, accelerated forward into me. 

At this intersection, I've had a number of drivers start forward into me, only to jam on the brakes once they see there's someone in front of them.  This time, as the car kept coming, I thought "you've got to be kidding".

In the moment I had to react, I was able to scrub most of my speed and get my car-side leg up.  The car's bumper or hood ran into my left shin which pushed me over to the right.

I took a bit of a scrape on the shin from impact, but since it was just left of center, it was bruised muscle and not chipped or broken bone.  When I hit the ground, I basically fell in a seated position.  My baggy shorts held up fine and my hands and head never hit the ground.  I came out of it relatively unscathed.

The Hyland I was riding is another story.

The front wheel is completely taco'd as is the front fender.  There's a small ding in the left chainstay and the rear wheel doesn't want to spin freely.  I haven't looked closely at the bike to see how extensive the back end damage is, but I'm guessing the frame is done.

The car that hit me was driven by a college student back in town visiting his family.  His mom and presumably sister were in the vehicle as well.  Their response was great.  The mom was a little shook up, but was quite concerned about me.

We exchanged info and the mom and sister waited at the pizza place where the accident happened while the son drove me and the out of commission Hyland home.

So, in addition to being the brand manager, to the best of my knowledge, I get the "honor" of being the first person to do-in a Hyland.

UPDATE 7/18/08:
My left leg seems to be fine.  The bruise isn't too pronounced, but there's a little discomfort when I raise my toes and foot as high as I can.  There'a also a sore muscle on the inside of my right leg.  I don't anticipate it being anything more than a tweak.

I took a little closer look at the bike this morning.  The front fender didn't get destroyed, it just rotated and warped a little.  I spun it back into position and it seems to be good as before.  The left chainstay has a quarter-size ding and the rear wheel doesn't spin freely.  It isn't touching the frame or fender at any point, so I suspect that the wheel got jarred loose on impact.  I'll adjust it tonight and see if it frees it up.  The front rim is definitely gone.

I had a realization today when talking to a co-worker.  It's 40 days until PJ and I get on a plane headed to Europe for some distributor visits and the Eurobike tradeshow.

My "Summer" ended at 10:15am.

There's still so much to do before then.  For that trip, we'll be gone for two weeks and when we return, we will have 13 days before we fly to Las Vegas for Interbike.  Returning from Interbike, we'll be in the office about two weeks before we head east to the Outdoor Demo East event in Rhode Island.

It's practically Fall already.

The good news is that we're in pretty solid shape for having our second complete bike model ready to display at Interbike.  None of our suppliers have said "no" to our designs and it's full speed ahead.

The bad news is that there's still a number of things to be worked out and it's not 100% guaranteed the samples will be there.  Right now, we're looking at receiving the frames and proprietary components the week before the show begins.  And that's with the best case timeline.

That's the update for now.  We're going to be releasing some pretty cool stuff in the next two months.  More as it is ready.