I got a bike...

...back.

(And home on a bike trailer, no less!)

Yes, it finally happened.  I finally started a post about going to collect my collision bike over a week and a half ago.  It was way back in August, Saturday the 27th in fact, but some other tidbits have happened in the intervening time to keep from sharing the experience.  For one thing, Adele and I headed down to Brooklyn to visit her sister, brother in-law, and brand spanking new niece.  The visits were terrific, but the city, a place I've always looked forward to experiencing, left me feeling a wee bit cool this time.  No, city wasn't changed, but I likely had, and a long, long, long, LOOOONNNGG car ride to immerse myself in a high density of people and structures no longer entices me in the way it once did.  Lots of people, in this country, also means lots of cars, and it is all together possible I no longer view that exposure in a positive light.

But the bike, yes, I got it back after the police held it for two months as evidence, and I was in no particular rush to have it fill my bay, as I was not yet permitted to ride such a contraption.  Well, that last bit changed, and likewise, my desire to once again swing a leg over my trusty many-purpose steed waxed as well.  I may have even been ready to reconnect with the inanimate object that experienced the same impact that I did, although, thankfully, the rear wheel absorbed some energy from that initial impact and gave its life to at least marginally pad me.  Keep in mind, this wheel was collapsed not sideways, but inline with the spokes, the direction in which wheels are impressively strong.  Yes, it is a bit of an odd feeling to see a wrecked machine and know that my body experienced some of the same force that crushed the wheel, left pannier, and stays on that side of the rack as well.  It was a hard hit.

For roughly ten years, with regard to that bike, I'd been telling people that I couldn't believe I hadn't broken the frame yet.  It is my errand bike, which means it has often supported over 50 pounds on the rack, pulled all sorts of trailers, and successfully resisted theft by looking like something nobody in their right mind would ever steal.  While in its day, the early nineties, it was an upper end mountain bike, I certainly own multiple much nicer bikes.  Yet in all likelihood, I consistently put more miles on that bicycle than all the others combined.  Simply, it so often did what I needed a bike to do.  Shockingly, it seems it may continue to do just that.  

For now, the bike is under the eye of my friends at Hampshire Bicycle Exchange for an estimate of damages, should the motorist who hit me and his or her insurance ever be found, but we will once again be united, and I should be able to replace the damaged bits, make the bike ride worthy, and then even be the rider who can once again swing a leg over that steed.  There may be some therapeutic value in all those actions.