Update Bike #3-Dos!
This will be short and sweet. I've been able to bike to a few towns to hang out with friends or help out, or see movies and the like then coming home tired but happy to have bicycled my way there. Well the other day I was on my way to Avignon to meet up with a tour guide friend with whom I was going to tour le palais des papes and the pont d'avignon when my chain popped off and got jammed between my freewheel and dropout right when I started to climb a rather large hill.
Curses I thought, I'm already running a tad late; I reached over with my gloved hand and tried to yank the chain free, when *pop* something ripped in my back the pain of which caused me to double over like a slinky. Nursing my back with one now greasy and bleeding hand (don't remember how I sliced that open as well) I pitifully tried to pull my chain out from the frame. I'm sitting on the ground beside my bike at this point, cursing myself because how could I let a stupid chain beat me up like this? It was blazing hot outside, I'm a bike mechanic, I had little kids speeding by on bmx bikes and one gear shift is going to break me? Yes it did : ), I made the call to throw in the towel. Thankfully that morning my landowner lady had told me if anything ever happened on my bike that she would be happy to pick me up, I took her up on that within a full 2 hours. She dropped me off in Avignon and I was still able to do the tour.
After that whole escapade my back was hurting me a great deal so for the first time in my life I went to see a chiropractor, a French one. I now know how to say spine, ankle, medical bill, throbbing and sharp pain. He didn't do much but he did tell me not to do anything at all, even vacuum, for the next 3 days. Well it's been three days so I'm gonna get excercising again, but it did put me back ( : } ). I'm a little worried about hurting my back again but Mont Ventoux is laughing at me so I'm going to start riding again to get back in the saddle.
Aw Emma bean :'( I hope it heals up quickly. Sounds painful and frustrating! I have never been to a chiropractor either (you know me a touching don't mix too well).
ReplyDeleteYou are so brave...I wonder how long your ride would've been otherwise. Anyway, it's good you are self-sufficient and not intimidated by setbacks.
ReplyDeleteFrom my appartment to Avignon is 8 miles. Yesterday halfway home from Pujaut I got a flat tire, I fix one thing and another rears it's ugly head!
ReplyDeleteI was so grateful for my landlord lady, I thought she was just going to take me and the bike home and I was going to catch a bus and be late but she dropped me off at Avignon and dropped my bike off at the appartment. She said she felt bad because she thought a little piece of me had died when I had to call her for hel
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