I went down again. Yeah. I feel like a real loser. 🙁 It was a sudden stop, and I guess I grabbed too much front brake, and the bike slid out and I went for a ride on the pavement. I think that the fact I need new tires, and that I still was lacking confidence because of the other crash were contributing factors.

This happened Sept. 29th. Luckily it was only a block and a bit from home, so with the help of some very helpful bystanders I could just get the bike home. One of them was even kind enough to drive me to the hospital!

Anyway, it wasn’t bad, really – the bike is hardly more damaged – the foot peg broke off and the clutch lever and shifter are bent. It was the same side (left), so, luckily, I hadn’t completely fixed that yet.

Me, I’m a little more damaged, but nothing permanent as far as I can tell. My knee (of course, the same one I’ve had two surgeries on already) swelled to at least twice it’s normal size and there is some spectacular bruising (and if there’s one thing I know, it’s bruising). It’s still pretty swollen and I can’t bend it fully, but the swelling is going down and there doesn’t seem to be anything broken or torn. There’s also a nice patch of road rash, because, drum roll, I was just wearing jeans since I was just booting around town and didn’t want to deal with full gear. If you want, I’ve been keeping pics, but they’re not too pretty.

So, I guess I’ve been going through a lot of feelings – like what am I doing on a bike if I crash twice so close together and how can I ever think I can ride and not feeling so competent and a lot of stuff like that. Also, getting a lot of feedback from non-riders that I should just give it up. Of course, the riders I know tell me that sh*t happens and I should keep riding.

So, I think what I’m going to do is reconsider my original idea of riding through the winter, take my bike off the road, spend the winter fixing it up, and try again in the spring. And, I might be into taking the advanced riders course to give myself confidence again.