Ow!!!!

Well, that was unpleasant.

Last Saturday, after some cool and rainy weather, we got a couple hour break of warm and sun in the afternoon. Decided to take the MTB out for a quick ride.

Should have stayed home.

I headed for the greenway. The concrete bike path through town. Usually always a good ride. But not today...

From the earlier rain, some things were still a bit damp. I ride a short distance on a unpaved road from where I live to the Greenway. The first thing I hit on the Greenway is a short downhill into a sweeping right turn. Traveling under 15 mph (cause that's the max shown on my computer). Banked around the turn as I've done hundreds of times. But this time something different happened.

The rear wheel suddenly slid out under me like I hit a sheet of ice. And I was sliding on the concrete on my right side. It was over in seconds. No broken bones or anything like that. But my right hand took a hit, with several bleeding scrapes. My right leg got it worse. One small scrape, one slightly larger that was bleeding a fair amount, a bigger raw area near knee, but it wasn't bleeding. And a sizable scrape halfway down leg probably an inch or two wide and 5-6 inches long.

Ow!!!

Post-crash analysis tells me that even though the greenway itself was dry, my drive on the damp dirt road got the tires to hold some dirt/sand. Once at the greenway, all was ok. But the edges of the tires were still gritty. Once I banked in to the curve, the gritty sidewall was the contact area. And physics took over and down I went.

Bike took a little abuse too. Similar to me. Scraped off the edge of the handlebar grip, and the rear derailleur. Almost shredded the shift cable. With a little filing and some paint, had it back to good shape. Later discovered I needed to straighten the derailleur hanger, think it got bent a bit as well.

So, bike is healed up. And me, I'm working on it. Getting there, but it takes a bit longer. Got lots of midly touchy scabs on leg though! I have pictures, but I think I'll leave them off this particular post.

Today took my first ride - on the same bike. Did the ride I was going to do a week ago. All went fine. No crashes. Going a bit easier as the leg can feel a bit sore at times. But back on the horse!

Mystery Revealed!

Not that much of a mystery, really.

Picked up a basic 7 speed cruiser bike for a closeout price a few months back. Performance Bicycle Americano with an aluminum frame and 26 inch wheels.

Decent but basic. The components are all pretty cheap, but after some tweaking by me, they work ok. Here's the bike in its nearly stock condition -

My plans for it are quite extensive. I'm planning to make a sort of custom bike, inspired partly by chopper bikes, low rider bikes and the old Schwinn Sting-Ray style bike.

Almost all the parts will change. I bought it mostly for the full size frame, to use as my starting point. Been figuring parts for it, getting ready to start ordering. And do more figuring. As I haven't entirely decided some things. Like the size of the front wheel (probably smaller, but how much?) and the fork (springer or straight chrome or suspension?) and so on.

But for now I'm just riding it around, enjoying it as is. Before things get crazy!