Road Rash FTL

Here is the scene, Lane on his brakeless fixed gear, riding down a hill that dead ends into a busy 4 lane road, without a care in the world. He is hopping his bike, to scrub speed and avoid losing control.

Suddenly, his fixed gear begins to freewheel. For those of you who have ridden fixed, this is the worst thing that can possibly happen. In a surge of adrenaline, our hero looks back to see his chain off the rear cog, happily spinning away on just an axle.

Remaining calm, he evaluates his options; try to make the turn at the bottom of the hill and coast to safety up a gentle hill, or bomb down the hill into said busy intersection with no control of the bike. Clearly, it's no contest in favor of trying to make the turn. He takes a deep breath and goes for the turn. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be and he was unable to turn as tightly as needed. A curb found its way directly in his path, which causes a whole sequence of events involving alot of sliding, flipping, rolling, even a bit of bouncing, culminating in a lack of forearm skin and a set of slightly bent Nitto HB4005 bullhorn bars.

For whatever reason, the bike gods have been striking at me recently with all the pent up fury of a pissed off cobra whose charmer just dropped his flute. Not particularly fun, but to me it just means I need to step my game way up. Hopefully my luck turns soon.


lane