I think it's supposed to be round

So I went for a ride today. Normally on a day where the weather was predicted to be in the nineties I would have gone in the morning, but I stayed up late to watch the Mets lose, so I decided to go in the afternoon around 3:30. It was near ninety when I started out but not too humid and breezy so it was bearable. I had chosen my route to stay near the shore, heading out to Port Monmouth and back, a ride of about 21 miles. So, there I was, a little more than seven and a half miles into my ride, enjoying the warm summer afternoon, when BAM! I found myself laying on the asphalt. It really happened that fast. One second I am on the bike and the next I am laying on the road, looking around to see if anyone saw me go down. Not to get help, but because it was embarrassing. I picked myself up, checked for broken bones first, then looked to discover scrapes on my right leg and arm. I got up without a problem and picked up the bike which revealed the odd shape of my front wheel. Not a good shape. Because the wheel wouldn't turn, I dragged the bike to the side of the road, up onto the sidewalk, and onto a lawn. (A very nice lawn, plush and green, I might add) With the shape of the wheel it was immediately obvious that I wasn't riding home, so I sat down on the lawn, pulled my cell out of my right rear pocket, hoping it was still working, and called Pat. Now, I was only fifteen minutes from home, but Pat wasn't home, being at a friend's house a half hour from our house. I asked her to come and get me and then sat back to wait. The owner of the house I was in front of came home a few minutes later and came over to check on me, and then later a guy in a truck stopped to see if I needed help. It was nice to see strangers reaching out, despite a State Trooper who was so busy on his cell phone he drove right past. I waited forty minutes and then Pat was there and I loaded the bike in the car and went home to shower, medicate, and ice my wounds.

Now, what happened? As I was sitting on the lawn I tried to reconstruct it in my mind and this is what I think happened. I was riding with my hands resting on the handlebars, and not really gripping them, which isn't really that unusual for riders to do. I then hit a medium size pothole which I didn't see, and this caused my hands to jump up off the bars. With nothing to prevent me from going forward, that is what I did. I recall trying to steer with my forearms on the handlebars as I went forward, but it didn't work, and then the wheel went sharply left, and I was skidding along the asphalt. I don't know if the wheel was bent by the pothole, hitting the curb, or just being so sharply turned and stopped.

It could have been a lot worse. My helmet's outer shell is cracked, my hip is bruised and sore, and I have numerous "strawberries" on my body. There was no car behind me, I didn't break any bones, and I will ride again. So it could have been a lot worse.

Tomorrow morning I will shlep my bike to the bike shop to have the wheel replaced and the rest of the bike checked out.