Late news, bad news, good news

Yep, behind a bit, life got in the way of keeping things updated.

Thursday’s ride up Kings- Better than Tuesday, still had some issues getting the heart rate up, but it finally did respond. One of those things where I had to sort of “break through” an invisible barrier. Old-time “summer” weather pattern with it wet up on Skyline, although at 45 degrees, definitely cooler than it should be! Perhaps most-memorable part of the ride was getting held up by road construction descending 84 back into Woodside. Met up with a very large number of Google employees on a ride. Asked one of them why Google can’t handle search results better for our shop, getting requests confused with people looking for a shop in the UK with a similar name. Said his wife has similar complaints and, of course, not his department.

Thursday’s main event was Kevin (my son, not the pilot) finally having his kidney stent removed so he could once again ride. This didn’t happen in time for our morning ride, but did allow him to ride to work and back. I told him to take it easy on the way home… fat chance of that. As soon as the road tilted up, Kevin started riding hard. Youth.

kevin_crashFriday? A day Kevin would rather forget. He had just switched over to his “real” pedals on his nice bike that morning, forgetting that he’d been told the pedal needed some work because he hadn’t reassembled it properly after doing some work on it. Riding to work with his sister, a few minutes ahead of me, he rounded a corner and splat. Pedal body separated from axle, Kevin loses balance, and crashes hard against the curb. I come across the scene shortly afterward, seeing an ambulance and police cars ahead of me and somehow I knew it was Kevin. Sigh.

Because he had a good gash in the top of his head (required 3 staples) with a fair amount of blood oozing out, they said he had to go to the trauma center at Stanford. Not sure how they felt that necessary; head wounds by definition bleed a fair amount, and he was coherent. In the end he never even went to the trauma unit, just the ER, and after a Cat scan revealed that he hadn’t suffered even a minor concussion, they cut him loose.

I went back to the scene of the crime after work, and gotta say, in this case, a helmet may have prevented an awful lot of grief. Maybe even saved his life. Becky hadn’t thought he’d hit the curb, but I found scrapes and blood that told a different story. Always interesting to visit the scene of an accident and look for clues; you’ll be surprised at how much you can sometimes find. The helmet was cracked, scraped and bloodied, but dang, it did its job. Kevin’s bare head against a concrete curb would not have had a happy ending. As it is, he’s bruised up a bit, but able to ride.

And today (Saturday)? Kevin’s at the shop, no issues, ready to ride tomorrow. With different pedals.






3 thoughts on “Late news, bad news, good news

    1. Betty: Kevin’s fortunate that he’s able to complain about his various scrapes and bruises. Not sure he quite sees it that way though! –Mike–

  1. The most mundane things can trip us up. Glad your son is ok. I think the hospitals really like to do CAT scans. I’ve turned them down on the offer a couple times after accidents–just didn’t like the idea of the radiation.

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