We finally received the police report on the crash that has left my wide bedridden for the last 10 days.  I must say it’s a disappointment.  These days police reports are mostly a form with little ovals darkened to indicate specifics about a collision.  Here’s a synopsis.: The driver was making a left hand turn in broad daylight on a dry road. There were no skid marks on the road. The right front corner of the vehicle made impact with my wife.  All these observations are apparently true.

The report says that the vehicle was traveling at 10 miles per hour at time of impact. This is balderdash. There is no way the SUV was going only 10 miles per hour.  If so, my wife could have side-stepped it with ease.  So where did the police officer get this tidbit of information?  I suspect he asked the driver who had every reason to understate the speed. Of course, the officer could have simply made it up to get on with the rest of the form.  What the officer neglected to do – obviously because he is busy fighting crime and scraping other people’s spouses off the pavement – was to ask my wife in the days after the crash.  (Digression: this is a chronic problem with pedestrian and bicycle crashes. The victims injuries are often so severe that the only person at the scene who can explain what happened was the vehicle operator.)  In any case, asking the victim to verify the information would have been easy. we’re in the phone book.. My wide would have told the police officer that not only was the SUV going faster than 10 miles per hour, but also that it was accelerating.  It was the sound of the revving engine that told my wife the SUV wasn’t stopping.  (I have heard her explain the particulars of the accident to several doctors and nurses; she is certain of this detail.)

The report also fails to mention that the driver drive his SUV around a car that was waiting at the stop sign.  Rather than waiting his turn, the driver accelerated into the intersection in a straight, diagonal line.  I have driven, walked, and ridden my bike through this intersection hundreds of times over the past 20-odd years.  The view to the left at this intersection is obstructed by a fence. So the driver accelerated into the intersection without a clear view of what was to his left.  He was either looking elsewhere or was otherwise distracted.  His behavior by any reasonable use of the term was reckless. One possible cause of the driver’s inattentiveness was not investigated. The officer apparently neglected to check the driver’s cell phone to see if it had been used during the collision. (There is no mention of cell phone use in the report.)

The brief narrative in the report says the driver failed “to pay full time and attention” to the pedestrian.  I realize this is police jargon but it truly understates the driver’s negligence. I don’t know what kind of fine one gets for failing to pay attention but I bet will be it is a lot less than we (and our insurance companies) have already spent.  My wife and I have missed 6 days of work so far. We’ve had three doctor visits and two ER visits.  And we are just getting started.  My wife’s orthopedist said that healing from this, if she’s lucky, could take 2-3 months.   

At some point, I’ll get this blog back to bicycling.  Maybe in a couple of months.

If you ever wonder what happens to you after you get hit by an SUV, read on.

First you get to ride to a trauma center in an ambulance while in excruciating pain.  Once there, among many other things, you are scanned from head to toe.  X-rays and CT scans.

Your initial pain is alleviated somewhat by a medicine that is seven times more powerful than morphine.  And you still hurt everywhere.

After five hours, it is determined that, despite a broken bone in your leg, you don’t seem to be in mortal danger so you are fitted for a leg immobilizer and released to your spouse and daughter who get you loaded into the backseat of the family car.  This alone is blindingly painful. Once at home it takes about 45 minutes to get you in the house.

You spend the next 36 hours or so moaning from pain.  Your head, neck, back, legs and hips hurt beyond description. You are unable to move your legs without assistance.  Your arms go numb and your hands cramp up from any exertion.  The worst is the bolts of pain down the back of the right leg at even the slightest touch,

Two days later you go see your doctor.  It takes about an hour to go from your bed to the backseat of the family car.  At the doctor’s office, the description of the accident makes it happen all over again and brings a torrent of tears and anguish.  The doctor refers you to an orthopedist and sets you up for an MRI.

The next day brings bed rest, which isn’t really rest at all as pain shoots down your legs at the slightest movement.  Your left leg begins to bend at the knee. Progress. Nevertheless, you dread leaving bed, even to go to the bathroom because you know it will bring on an onslaught of searing pain.

On the fourth day you get cleaned up for your orthopedist.  The process of getting in and out of the shower is so painful, you become utterly exhausted;.  You return to bed.  Three hours later it’s time for the orthopedist visit.  The good news is that the trip from bed to car takes only one-half hour.  The bad news is the pain is nauseating.

The orthopedist takes off the leg immobilizer and begins her exam with you in a wheel chair.  Your moans and wails at each gentle touch by your doctor’s hands makes it nearly impossible for the doctor to do her examination.  So she calls for a humongous aid who helps lift you onto an examination table.  Despite efforts to do so gently, you howl in pain.  The examination begins anew and is no less painful or productive. The doctor decides to send you back to the emergency room for tests to rule out potentially lethal causes for your pain.

At the ER you wait an hour in a wheelchair for a room to open up.  You have not had a pain pill in four hours.  Once a room opens up, you are given injections of pain medicine.  The nurse asks how your pain in expecting a response on a scale of one to ten.  You say, “I feel liquid.”  An ER doctor orders CT scans to get a better idea of the bone injuries in your right leg. He also orders ultrasound tests to rule out blood clots.

After the CT scan results come back, an orthopedic surgeon by the name of Dulce comes calling.  He is good looking and kind.  His examination makes the pain medicine re-appear.  This new onslaught of pain is worth something as the orthopedist rules out compartment syndrome as the cause of your pain.  He says that is good because compartment syndrome is a surgical emergency.

The ER doctor tells you that the ultrasound is going to hurt.  Just before it starts you are given another dose of pain medication in your arm.  As it turns out, the examine is tolerable and allows the doctors to rule out blood clots.

At 12:30 in the morning you are released.  You arrive home just after 1 a.m., more than 12 hours after leaving the house.

The simplest doctor’s visit ends up lasting half a day.  Pain like your never felt before was your constant visitor.

Back home in bed you sleep and have horrible nightmares about banging your broken leg against things.

After 3 hours your spouse gets up to drive your daughter to school.  He is a zombie.  On the way back he swings by the office to take care of your plants.  Then he goes to the drug store for more pain medicine.  Then the supermarket.  He buys a large coffee that does nothing to ward off his wooziness.

He does laundry while you ice the hideous welts and bruises on your legs. Then he blogs.  He finds something boring on the tube and fades to black.

It was a beautiful spring morning here at the Rootchopper Institute. A great day to go for a walk or a bike ride. Mrs. Rootchopper decided to spend her Saturday morning multitasking. Instead of doing errands by car and, then, going for a walk, she decided to walk the 1 1/2 miles to the post office and dry cleaner. About 1/2 mile into her walk, she crossed Sherwood Hall Lane, a busy two-lane suburban road. She encountered a car that was waiting to make a turn. Seeing that this car was stopped she continued walking across the street in front of the stopped car. Seconds later, she watched with dread as an SUV accelerated around the stopped car and came straight for her.  “He’s not going to stop,” she thought. She was right. He ran right over her. Well, maybe not, since it appears she went airborne immediately after impact and landed in a heap on the street.

Within seconds a woman came to her side and started asking her what hurt. She was a nurse. It’s always good to know that medical professionals are standing by in case you get run over by an SUV.. As luck would have it (okay, luck is a relative thing), my wife was lying in the street about 100 yards from a fire station.  In no time, an ambulance arrived.
 
While all this was going on, yours truly was riding around the neighborhood with a fully loaded bike. I was testing the handling of my bike with all the stuff I planned to carry for my tour next week. I decided to go ride around the block to see if I could spot Mrs. Rootchopper. Well, no such luck.  All I saw was a bunch of fire trucks and police cars tending to the aftermath of an accident. “Just another day in suburbia,” thought I.

Meanwhile. the ambulance whisked her away to Fairfax Hospital, some 20 miles away.  This apparently is the nearest trauma center.  Now I had always thought that any emergency room worth its salt would be good enough for this sort of thing.  And seeing as how Mount Vernon Hospital’s emergency room was 300 yards away, I thought it odd that they would take her somewhere else. Be that as it may, Fairfax Hospital’s trauma center is apparently the place to be.  It is massive. It is clam, It is clean. It has a heliport. It is the major leagues of trauma care.  I am getting to know a lot about such things since, just last month on her birthday, Mrs. Rootchopper spent nearly 10 hours at the George Washington University Hospital emergency room.  That’s where they treated Ronald Reagan when he was shot.  It’s got an urban vibe.  It’s crowded. It’s loud. It’s swarming with cops and perps,  So I was pretty happy to be at Fairfax.

Mrs Rootchopper spent the day with doctors, nurses, radiology technicians.  Twenty years ago they would have kept her overnight for observation, but they released her after about 6 hours.  So far her injuries are contusions, gashes and pain from head to toe.  Her fibula is broken just below the knee.  She will be on the mend for several weeks.  We came home and got her to bed.  Had it not been for my daughter’s recent experience with crutches, I have no idea how we would have gotten her from the car to the house,

As for the SUV driver.  I hope you got to The Home Depot for your weedwhacker. Or maybe you were in a rush to get some Krispy Kremes. Could it be you were late for your kid’s baseball game?  Was it worth it? You might want to think about whether saving a couple of minutes is worth killing somebody’s mother the day before Mother’s Day. You very nearly did.  In any case, do the rest of us a favor and slow the fuck down.

I was riding down Columbus Street in Old Town Alexandria when I spotted this door on the front of the Austin Grill. My Sequoia (with its spiffy new front rack) was itchin’ for some huevos rancheros and a Corona, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the words referred to mustaches. We don’t need no stinking ‘staches.

Friday was a long day. Left home at 6:40 and left the office 11 hours later. I wondered if I would get home before dark. This being the last work day of April I had plenty of light. For some reason the evening light on Dyke Marsh caught my eye.

Dyke Marsh borders about 1 mile of my commute. The tides roll in and out. Some days the reeds are knocked over. Some days all you see are mud flats. Today the water level was just right. In a few days the ducklings and goslings will hatch. They are another highlight of my spring rides to work.

What would a bike commute be like without a little adventure now and then? Before leaving the office, I received emails from Alexandria and Fairfax County advising that those jurisdictions were under a tornado watch this evening. Guess where most of my commute is: Alexandria and Fairfax County. Everything looked a bit cloudy but otherwise unremarkable until I passed under the Beltway. This picture was taken on the Washington Street deck on top of the outer loop of the Beltway. I was about to go left, into the belly of the beast.

Other than a strong headwind and a few sprinkles that turned into light rain, the weather was unremarkable, In fact, had I not received the emails, I doubt I would have realized that severe weather was nearby. About a mile from home there were a couple of rumbles of thunder but nothing to worry about ordinarily.

after arriving at home, I put the Sequoia away and went inside the house and then the storm hit. Heavy rain, wind, probably some hail. I turned on the television to see ominous Doppler radar images. The storm that was raging outside had spawned a tornado that touched down near Quantico about 30 miles south. And perhaps another tornado hat touched down near Woodbridge, 20 miles to the south.

What are the three most important words in bike commuting? Location, location, location,.

Usually, when my odometer is coming up to a milestone, I obsessively stare at it until it rolls over. This one sneaked up on me and I missed it. I guess I’ll just have to ride another 997 miles for my next chance. This could take a while.

I named my Tour Easy recumbent bicycle Nellie during my bike tour to Indiana.  I was coming down Big Savage Mountain in western Maryland when I glanced at my speedometer and saw “45”.  I started riding the brakes and saying “Whoa Nellie” like Keith Jackson, the football announcer.  If you’ve never done it, riding a bike at high speed on an unfamiliar road is thrilling, and really kind of idiotic  All it takes is one pothole and you’re toast.

Today, I woke up to a beautiful Easter morning. Mrs. Rootchopper and Teenage Daughter Rootchopper were  nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of chocolate bunnies danced in their heads.  After a humongous bowl of Cheerios, I decided to go for a bike ride.  I chose to ride my recumbent because, all last year, riding it for more than an hour was causing a painful condition in my left foot called Morton’s Neuroma.  Imagine a nail being inserted into your foot just an inch behind the gap between your third and fourth toes.  It really hurts and it only presents itself when I ride this particular bike.

I have a theory that the cause of my condition was not in my foot, rather it had something to do with me moving the seat back on my bike.  So I recently moved it just a bit forward.  Today’s ride would put my theory to the test.

I also decided to see if my legs could take some challenging hills so I picked a course with plenty of them and kept my chain on the big chainring (the hardest to push) for as long as my knees would allow.  This would test my knees fitness for the hills of eastern Pennsylvania which are part of my upcoming bike tour.
 
I rode from my house in Mount Vernon VA to Washington DC.  After a brief ride on the Capital Crescent Trail, I rode up to MacArthur Boulevard. I followed MacArthur (thinking “I shall return”) to Persimmon Tree Road which skirts the famous Avenel Golf Course.  I continued on to Potomac Village.  By this point I had ridden on a dozen or so respectable hills without any problem with foot or knees. The weather was gorgeous so I decided to ride west on River Road.  I neglected to stop in Potomac Village to refill my water bottles. Any experienced bicyclist would tell you that this is dumb.  Being an experience cyclist I told myself “This is dumb.”  So what did I do? I rode on anyway expecting to get water at Poole’s General Store which I thought was only a couple of miles away. 

River Road is a serious roller coaster ride that is a favorite of DC-area cyclists.  I screamed down one hill and climbed up the next.  I was really impressing myself.  Recumbents normally don’t climb very well but I was doing just fine, even passing other riders.  (Hell was feeling a chill.) 

After many miles of this I came to a “T” near Bretton Woods Country Club.  Still no General Store.  Had it closed?  I rode on, screaming down a hill at 40 miles per hour. Nellie was willin’ and so was I.  At the bottom of the hill I saw the store. CLOSED.  Not good. I had maybe 2 ounces of water left. 

Did I turn around?

Oh, please!

On I rode down one hill and up another. Maybe I’ll knock on someone’s door and ask for water. Maybe I ask the Buddhists at their temple, or the Hare Krishnas at theirs. Not wanting to take the chance of getting converted after getting all that Catholicism from my youth out of my system, I rode on.

I finally did what no man is supposed to do. I asked for help. I spotted a cyclist just getting underway at an intersection and asked him where I might find water (That’s a fine looking bottle you have there, Mister.) He told me to just take a right and ride into Poolesville, just up the road a ways.  About 15 minutes later I pulled into a gas station with a little convenience store. Water, Gatorade, really crappy snacks! I’m SAVED!

I snarfed and guzzled.  Then looked up. Dark clouds formed a line to the west. Not good. I looked down. The odometer said 50 miles. Think I can outrun it?  I kicked Nellie with my spurs and took off for home,

All the hill climbing had made my knees sore but the bothersome foot was doing just fine.  I rode hard back a slightly different way to River Road.  Apparently all the hills up to now had been more up than down. Good news. Nellie smiled. 

We started to hill hop, going down one hill so fast that our momentum carried most, if not all, the way up the next.  Down we went… 40, 41, 42, 42, 41.  I made it back to Potomac Village for another food and water break. Then back to MacArthur Boulevard, flying down the wooded, twisty hill out of Great Falls Park.  About 20 minutes later I saw a sign with a thermometer:

All those high speed descents had masked the rise in temperatures. 90 degrees on Easter. 

Nellie and I slowed down for the last 20 miles of our ride.  The bike paths were packed with families and riders out for a casual (i.e., slow) ride.  We pulled into home at 97 miles.

My foot feels fine but my knees are aching. I think we passed the audition.

One of the extras of riding on the Mount Vernon Trail is meeting up with long-distance bike tourists. The Mount Vernon Trail is part of the East Coast Greenway and the Adventure Cyclists Atlantic Coast Route. The latter goes from Key West to Bar Harbor and is on my bucket list.

Today on the way home I stopped to chat with Don and Mary Williams. Don and Mary are (as Leonard Cohen recently said) just two crazy kids with a dream. I didn’t ask their ages but I think they are a few years older than me. They left Jacksonville Florida in mid March and here they are about 3 miles from their destination, Union Station in Washington DC.

We talked for about 20 minutes about bicycle touring gear, the best parts of the Atlantic Coast route (the outer banks of North Carolina), Amtrak, Crazyguyonabike.com and other stuff while the rain fell and the jets landing at National Airport passed just a few feet over our heads.

I don’t have any idea which is older, this sweater or this bike. They are both nothing much to look at but have served me well for years and years. (Actually I think this sweater may date back to the days when Bill Cosby wore sweaters on his sitcom. It’s old!)

The holey sweater is my insulating layer for winter bike riding. It is made of very soft wool. Any time the temperature falls below 45 degrees, I break out the holey sweater. I rode home today in the rain on a 40 something degree day into a headwind. I was completely comfortable the entire way.

I don’t much care that this sweater has holes in it. It’s normally worn under my rainproof Marmot Precip jacket so nobody sees it. I’ll keep wearing it until it falls apart.

Before you think about springing for that nice merino wool sweater for your cold-weather biking, ride to a thrift shop and buy a holey sweater. Spend the money you save on hot cocoa.