Long time fixes, Lucky to be here

Before I address what happened Saturday, which needs to be last, let me talk about a couple mundane things from the weekend that have nothing to do with my own mortality.

Over the weekend I addressed two issues that have been bothering me for a very long time at the new house. My tub in the master bathroom has had dead ghost ants and other insects showing up for a long time. Several times I found small cracks in the caulk along a baseboard that appeared to be a point of entry although it still didn’t really explain how they would wind up in the tub. Finally last week I figured it out. The spigot for the tub had some cracked and dried out caulk on the top and the bottom basically had nothing sealing it off. I grabbed a tube of caulk at the local hardware store and applied a thick bead around the fixture, sealing it to the surrounding tile. So far it seems to have been effective as no more debris has been spotted in the tub since.

The other issue that has bothered me since I moved in was the light that is attached to my mailbox. That light is supposed to be controlled by an optical sensor on the house but for whatever reason it is on all the time. I tried to troubleshoot it several times in the past unsuccessfully. I decided to take another approach.

One of the remedies I tried in the past was to put a Hue smart bulb out there that could be controlled independently. The issue was my wifi signal did not reach out to the street so the bulb was unreachable. My approach this time was two fold. I bought one of those Xfi pod wifi extenders and placed it in an outlet by the front window. I then bought an Amazon Basics smart bulb which integrates easily with Alexa and placed it out front. This time the wifi was available, allowing the bulb to be configured and communicate with the rest of my smart home set up. I set the light to go off and on a schedule which should hopefully solve this issue. As a bonus if I am feeling festive the light is full RGB compatible, allowing me to change the color to whatever I want.

The last mundane topic was the Eagles game against the Bucs which was awful and not really as close as the 33-16 score. With each shitty performance I find myself more and more annoyed with Jalen Hurts emotionless attitude. Yes he is talented but he also has the slowest average ball release time in the league. He just is unable to consistently make a decision and get the ball out quickly. Whether they score a TD or he just made yet another turnover his expression is the same. I’m sort of over it. The defense was a joke, special teams was a mess and I turned the game off mid-third quarter.

Ok, so Saturday afternoon I decided I wanted to do a range test on my Master V4, something I had been meaning to do for awhile. The weather forecast was not favorable with potential rain in the area but I rolled the dice anyway and rolled craps. Within the first 11 minutes the rain already started but I pushed forward, being the stubborn individual that I am. Soon I was riding through steady rain and on very wet roads but both myself and the wheel were doing ok.

I was hoping to get out to my old house and back but I realized I was not going to have enough battery to do so. I decided to ride up Immokalee Road until I hit 20 miles on my GPS and then reverse direction, a solid plan. I hit 20 miles and headed back west along a road I had literally ridden at least 100 times over the years, maybe more.

There was a mixture of both wet and dry sections of the road due to spotty rain. I had my GoPro out and had just mentioned I was traveling at 36MPH according to my GPS when it happened. All of a sudden it felt like I had rolled onto a patch of ice, the wheel fish tailed under me and then headed towards the three lanes of traffic, with me on it. I had checked my rear view mirror briefly before the fall so I knew there was appreciable traffic on the road.

The next thing I know I am on the ground, sliding on my protective gear. I see the wheel in front of me. I know I am in the middle of the road and I also know I am about to get run over by a vehicle and potentially die. I was bracing for whatever that feeling was going to be but it never came. Instead I stopped sliding, looked back and saw a white dump truck that had stopped roughly 10 feet behind me. I couldn’t believe it.

Despite being somewhat in shock I sprung up quickly to collect the wheel and get off the side of the road as all three lanes of traffic had stopped. One of the vehicles stopped and asked if I was ok and/or needed anything. My quick physical inventory revealed I was ok albeit with a bloody left elbow. Everything else felt like it worked. A fire chief also stopped to ask if I needed anything and I again assured him I was ok, which I was physically, mentally, not so much.

So the wheel appeared ok, it had some physical damage but turned on and balanced. My plan was to suck it up and just ride home. However when I stepped on the wheel it again felt like I was on ice, I was convinced the road had some oil or something on it that was the reason I lost control. However after walking with the wheel a bit and trying again it still felt all screwed up so I just resigned myself to walking until someone could come get me. That someone was Michelle, one of my employees that lives nearby. Thankfully her and her husband could come get me.

As I was walking down the sidewalk I stopped and looked at the wheel again and realized that the tire was completely flat. Suddenly I realized what had happened. My inner tube had catastrophically failed, more than likely ripping at the valve stem causing the instant loss of pressure and subsequent loss of control. That is why it felt like I was on ice. Identifying the cause was a small victory but didn’t change my state of mind where I was trying to process the idea that I literally just escaped death. It wasn’t until I watched the video that I realized I actually escaped it twice.

Evidently there was a red truck in the right lane that I never even saw. When I went down I was ridiculously close to him. My forward speed and angle across the lane was just enough to get my body past his moving vehicle, which never stopped. I had no idea that I JUST missed getting clipped by this person, probably by inches.

This realization just added additional weight to what already was a heavy mental load. How did I get so lucky? Why did I get so lucky? I don’t know the answer. Saturday night I put the video together and then bandaged up my bloody elbow which was missing quite a few layers of skin. My gear for the most part saved me, protecting me from further harm and allowing me to slide instead of tumble to a stop.

Once the video was posted there was a tidal wave of response from the internet, too much for me to keep up with. There were theories about why it happened as well as criticism for me even being willing to ride with three lanes of high speed traffic in a bike lane. However most of the comments were very positive and reinforcing that it was sort of a miracle that I got up and walked away from that, I had to agree.

On Sunday I had a very low key day. You would think my mood would have been better having sort of escaped death the day before and being grateful for doing so.. However I found myself feeling almost depressed in some ways, it is sort of hard to explain or make sense of. I was thinking about taking a wheel to DD but thought better of it due to time and the complications of trying to get elbow guards onto my raw left arm.

I did a live stream Sunday night where I went in depth about the incident, my feelings about it and how it may affect me going forward. This will be one of those bookmarks in life where you relate to things before and after they happen. It will be interesting to see what the next chapters for me will be as a result.