So. Further to my unofficial bike saga, wherein Part 1 was Quintessential Montreal: The Little Bike That Fit, and Part 2 was It’s Just Like Riding a Bicycle…, I am recounting my latest bike escapade to you now, while it’s still fresh in my mind.

It was a stunningly beautiful day today. Sunny. Breezy. Not humid. Not raining.

In other words, I had no excuse whatsoever to procrastinate yet another day. No, I had to take the bike out and ignore my sense of foreboding. I had to RIDE the darn thing! Let’s go, I yelled at myself. Well, not out loud.

Once again I found myself helmeted and sneakered, out on the street, by the curb, sitting on my lovely new bike. Waiting. Waiting for the fear to subside.

What fear, you ask? Oh, nothing serious, really. Just, well, fear of losing my balance, falling over, and breaking a limb. That’s about it. So I sat there. On the bike. I did try a couple of times to ‘take off’ and succeeded for about 10 or 20 feet or so, then got scared again.

I even managed to plop the chain back on the gears after it had somehow come off. I was proud of myself… for about 10 seconds.

I simply could not understand why I should be so frozen like this, when – as a kid – I used to stay out all day on my bike, tearing up and down the neighbourhood streets and not coming home ’til almost dark.

You’re definitely not a kid anymore, I told myself sadly. Finally I sighed and decided to pack it in. I’d try again tomorrow.

I turned around and walked my bike back towards my apartment building. Oh, who do I spy across the street, by our driveway? Why, it’s our superintendent, putting out some garbage near the sidewalk. He grins broadly at me, knowingly, as he sees me crossing, walking the bike, not riding it. (I had told him earlier about my trepidation.) I am almost at the sidewalk and am just about to tell him how ashamed of myself I am, being still so fearful of –

Ker-SPLATTT!!!!! Just as I round the back end of a humongous SUV parked there, a woman – a HUGE, TALL, AMAZON of a woman steps backward, she walks back without looking from behind her stupid giant ARMOURED TANK of a vehicle, having been loading it with stuff, apparently, and she walks RIGHT BACK INTO ME, plowing me over and onto my bike and splat onto the ground, and yes, torn skin was involved! Oozing dark blood was involved! Bruising was involved!

My silly superintendent just stood there and watched, a petrified smile stuck on his face.

But the AMAZON! She lifted me right up, no problemo, in one fell (sorry!) swoop, and proceeded to crush me in a bear hug, apologizing and blubbering all the while, in French, was I hurt?! Oh no, oh no, oh no, what could she do?!

For starters, I thought, you could stop mashing me in your vise-like grip so I can breathe! 🙂

Luckily I have pretty good first-aid supplies.

Does this even qualify as a bike injury? Oh, the irony. Next time I will make sure to have my Medicare card on me. Just in case, you know.