You guys, this is not a joke. I didn’t only fall off my bike, I fell off my bike in the middle of the street and it was a total wipe out.
Let me start from the beginning.
A couple weeks ago, Jackson and I decided we should get bikes. The city of Frankfurt isn’t actually that big and we realized it would be nice to be able to just hop on and off a bike instead of always having to depend on public transportation.
So we mosied down to the local flea market one Saturday and left with a certifiable “flea market bike”. It was 30 euro, so you can imagine the quality of bike we’re working with here. A friend of ours is in the States right now so we decided to only buy one bike while I’m using our friends’ bike. Also, we found out after buying the bike that a lot of the flea market bikes have been stolen, so now I think of the poor guys who’s bike was stolen every time we use it.
Learning how to ride your bike in the city is a whole other kind of chaos. When do you ride on the street? When do you ride on the sidewalk? How much do Germans want to kill me when I ring my bell at them?
It’s been a learning process for sure. But anyways, back to the fateful night of the fall.
We were leaving a friend’s house around 10 pm and were riding our bikes back home. We were almost back to our apartment when Jackson zooms by me on his janky and absurdly loud flea market bike. Well, if you know me at all, then you know I just don’t take being zoomed by very lightly. So what do I do? Speed up of course, I love my husband but I don’t go down without a fight. I finally catch up to Yack and he pulls over to say something to me, but who does he think I am to fall for that old trick? Oh no, I am winning this race. I zoom by him, while sticking out my tongue of course, feeling on top of the world. I’m about to beat this sucker, I mean husband. I look down at the road because there are tram rails all over the streets here and it freaks me out that my tire could get stuck in the rail. As I look down, the unthinkable happens. I hit the rail at the wrong angle and my tire stops. We all learned in 5th grade that an object in motion stays in motion, right? Well that night, the object was my body and the motion was forward.
I flew off my bike, you guys. Flew. I swear I can remember my time in the air.
All of a sudden, my motion is met with gravity and I nailed the ground. The bike is a solid 4 feet behind me and I’m on the ground. It must have been loud, because a couple guys ran across the street to see if I was ok.
My jeans are ripped and all 10 people at the bus stop directly in front of me are staring with their mouths open.
I’m fine though. Just a little gnarly (what? I don’t think I’ve ever used that word) road rash on my knee and a few bruises in random parts of my body.
Jackson and I walked slowly and steadily home, me limping and him trying to hard not to laugh.
We made it to the door, and I grabbed the handle, looked at hime and said, “I win”.
