Injuries on two wheels

I've been riding motorcycles since I was 14. I've burned myself on mufflers and header pipes, I've gotten cut and scraped working on them, but the worst injury I've ever had was a cut lip and some bruises. It took a damn bicycle to actually hurt me.

In good weather, when I've got time, I like to take my bicycle to the store, or the library. On this occasion I'd been working 0100 to 0900(1a.m. to 9a.m. for you non-24hour clock folks). It's Sunday evening and I don't have to be at work until 9a.m. There was a guitar magazine with an article on Heart- the group- that I wanted to get for my daughter. Nice weather, so I jumped on the bike and headed for Barnes & Noble.

Got there, they were out. There's a Borders about a half-mile away, so I headed for there. You either take back streets, or try to avoid being run over on two major streets, so I took the back way. And all was fine, until I cut through the hotel parking lot. Other times I'd have been fine, but I was tired and my reactions were off when I clipped the speed bump. Big sucker. Front banged and wobbled, but it was when the back hit that I lost it. I had one of those frozen moments when you know what has happened, you know what's going to happen, and you know you can't do a damn thing about it.

Bang. I went over sideways to the right, and had just enough reaction left to guide the fall a bit with my hand (thankfully, had gloves on) and take the impact on arm, shoulder and hip. I slid about three feet, and as I stopped and lay there my first thought was, "I'm going to have a hard time putting a shirt on tomorrow". This because I was in shorts and a tank top. However, when I pulled myself up I found only a couple of small scratches. Sore, but still ambulatory. So I got back on the bike(scrape on seat, no other damage), went into Borders- they were out of the damn magazine- then rode home, cleaned up and went to bed.

Morning comes, and I woke up and tried to sit up. 'Tried' because I could not really move my right leg, and could not raise my right arm. I had to roll to the edge of the bed and swing my legs over, hobble to the phone and call the doctor for an appointment, then call work to say 'I ain't gonna be there'.

Ever tried to drive a standard transmission truck with no right leg?

I had not broken anything, but had bruised my shoulder and hip so badly I was off work for three days. And my shoulder gives me trouble to this day.

Followup on this was I'd told my supervisor I'd had a bike accident, and everybody thought I'd crashed my new motorcycle.

I still ride bicycles, but not when I'm that tired.