Dude, Where's My Car?: Why I'm Considering Getting a Bicycle Helmet

"Are you okay?" my friend Mike yelled up as I picked myself up off the steep gravelly terrain, having just watched me go flying over the handlebars, slam into ground face first and then slide part way down the hill on my grill, stopping just short of a fallen tree. "Yeah, I'm fine" I replied, shaking my arms and legs to see if anything felt broken and brushing at the gravel on my skin and clothes. I'd never been knocked out before and it was especially strange to wake up while sliding on one's face.

I noticed that my field of vision had been reduced to an area about the size of a paper towel roll. "Cool!" I thought. My head had that familiar light-headed feeling I remembered well from my "experimental phase". Through my visual tube I saw my baseball cap, which just moments before was perched catcher style on my head. Wrap-around sunglasses completing the look. I picked it up and put it back on, bill forward. Vision starting to come back. Smashed glasses went into cargo pants pocket.

"Dude, your face is f***ed up Mike laughed as he got closer. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"Yeah I'm fine. I guess those guys back there were right when they told me I should be wearing a helmet" I laughed. Still feeling light headed and goofy. I'd ridden these trails for years and nobody had ever said a word to me about wearing a helmet. Today, three separate strangers had admonished me. Weird.

I believed Mike about my face without seeing it. As my head began to clear, I became more aware of the effects of the crash. Elbows skinned-check. Legs skinned and torn-check. Face throbbing ( and based on Mike's expression, bloody)-check. I also began to notice that nice sensitivity to air currents caused by the exposure of the dermis, normally happily protected from the elements by the epidermis.

A quick examination of the bike revealed only a slight twist of the handlebars. Fortunately, the bike had me to land on and surf like an old Al Merrick. Not enough to worry about fixing now. Better to do it later with the proper tools rather than stripping the nut. Besides, it was time to get home and shower. Mike wanted to meet up with a bartender at her job and had asked me to come along. We mounted back up and rode the rest of way out of the woods.

I realized as we rode that my balance wasn't that great, and later, Mike told me that I was basically babbling incoherently. Repeating phrases over and over. Personally, I thought my comments were pretty damn funny and I remember being highly amused by them. I guess some people just can't appreciate my lightening quick, rapier wit. We had arrived in separate cars and knew that we were going to need some time after I rode right past my Blazer. "Hey Ted!" Mike yelled. "Back here!" I looked to see Mike getting off of his bike 50 yards behind me. Ours were the only two cars, and I had ridden right past them. Apparently still happily babbling along.

After twenty minutes or so, we decided that I was okay to drive the short distance to my house (I'm fine, really!). I let him shower first because I had some gravel scrubbing to do and wanted to self-medicate (think tequila) before my date with the plastic brush. A dermatologist friend once told me that if you just keep scrubbing, the area will eventually go numb. Turns out she was right, but getting to that point couldn't be described as "pleasant", even with the Patrone assist.

In the end, the final result was merely cosmetic. Broken nose, a little scarring, and some amusingly horrified looks from the bar's other patrons. Turned out it was a biker bar, so I guess they were trying to figure out who the other guy in the fight was, and why I was sitting casually at the bar with my face torn up.

I did notice that they all had helmets though. I might just look into getting one one of those.