Note: Recent events have led me to doubt some of what is written here. For an explanation, see this post.
I woke up this morning faced with a decision. I had planned on going on my first ride with a local cycling club that I had joined, but a couple of things had given me second thoughts. First, my seasonal allergies were flaring up, and I was concerned that this might interfere with my ability to ride my bike. The other problem was that I didn’t really have proper cycling attire. I had clothing that I was comfortable wearing on a bicycle, but it wouldn’t make me look like a cyclist. I actually bought a pair of cycling shorts yesterday, but I was overwhelmed by the price and choice of shirts and decided against buying one. I’m always more than a bit shy about introducing myself to new groups of people, and looking different wasn’t going to make it any easier. After a few minutes of deliberation, though, I decided to put on a shirt I had that was made of some sort of athletic fabric and go.
When I arrived at the starting point of the ride, I could see that my choice of clothing wasn’t the only way in which I stood out. I was also one of only two cyclists without drop handlebars. When I had purchased my bike two months earlier, I had balked at the price of drop handlebars, opting instead for a cheaper commuter bike, which I had come to like very much. I wasn’t bothered by the fact that my bike was probably the cheapest one there; it was just that the difference in construction was another thing that made me feel I didn’t belong.
After we started moving, I became conscious of yet another way in which I didn’t fit in, although this one was decidedly more subtle. I’d always been a cautious bicyclist, and so I’d tend to use my brakes as I’d go down hills. As I braked my way down the hills, I found that the other cyclists were pedaling past me. Uphill was a different story. Living in the Berkeley Hills, I had biked uphill almost every day for several months. Over the course of these months, I had managed to cut my evening commute (the uphill direction) in half. With my youth and my comfort with hills, I found myself passing many of the other cyclists on the uphill.
As the ride progressed, I began taking the downhill stretches a bit faster. I started out braking less, and then even started pedaling a bit. I didn’t feel a need to be going faster than anybody else. It was just my paranoid fear of not fitting in. In fact, I still found myself taking the hills a bit slower than many of the others.
About a third of the way through the ride 43 mile ride, I neared the bottom of a hill along a quiet road. The road veered off to the right, but I did not. My bicycle crossed over the center line of the road, and I tried to turn back onto the right side of the road. The next thing I remember, I had fallen and gotten up again, and people were crowding around with concern.
Shock and Jaw 
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