Cycling Across America #11
Part 11 of the Cycle-Across-America series relayed day by day as it happened, exactly ten years later. (You can read from the start in Boston)
In yesterday’s section I was released from hospital having been knocked down the night before, so ten years ago today I wasn’t cycling anywhere:
Chester, Viriginia. About a hundred miles from where I was knocked down.I’ve decided not to decide. I’m not going to make any decisions about the rest of the trip, or if there is a rest of the trip, or if there’s anything. Until I feel better I’m not even going to think about it.
The swelling on the hip has gone down a bit. It’s more of a shallow eight-inch bowl now. It means I still can’t sit though. At least, what I do isn’t sitting in the conventional sense. I kind of lie on my right hip and have cushions and ice on the left side of my backside. To just sit ordinarily, even on a soft bed, is agony.
And I can’t walk. But I can move. Have stopped using the crutches so I can recover quicker. It’s a kind of limited shuflle that I can do. Although my legs were banged up also, I think the difficulty with walking all stems from the pain in the left hip.
And whiplash kicked in after I finally slept. To get up from the couch I have to lift my head with my hands and position it straight up, then I can lift it with my shoulders. The neck muscles themselves have no strength. Getting up from bed takes some serious manoeuvers.
My helmet was cracked in two. Both panniers were shredded. And the bike’s frame is useless. It seems clear that the baggage probably saved me. Being hit from behind, both panniers, and the sleeping bag and other bag I had on top of the rack, were all shoved up into me through the saddle - which is all bent. Not quite an air bag, but better than nothing.
The right leg is a bit sore too; it took a bang I think from the handlebars as I took flight. There are other bruises and a few cuts but nothing too bad. Weird to think two days ago I was wondering if I might not walk again.My aunt hadn’t appeared at the hospital wearing a blazer; a blazer is some sort of big vehicle - with lots of space for a broken bicycle and bags of baggage - which is why the police officer had said not to worry because my aunt had a blazer.
The truck that hit me was going 50 mph. That part of Shore Drive was a four-lane with a 45 mph speed limit and everything cruising just above it. I remember looking at the inch, literally, that was outside the white line, the edge of the road where a shoulder would have been, and trying to cycle on it to get the maximum distance away from the passing traffic.
And just before I was hit I was staring at the vehicle in front, knowing I was going to get hit. A hundred or so yards ahead I could see a small turn off and had planned to take it no matter what, but that was when I said to myself I’m going to get hit right now. The impact kind of felt like how I imagine it would feel if King Kong took a full swing at you with a baseball bat.
The policeman had said that the stretch I was hit on is called Death Mile or something because of the fatalities. He said the hospital staff all know him too well from coming in with people who get killed there.
I recalled seeing a sign, as I exited the ramp area from the Bridge-Tunnel toll plaza, that gave the very high number of accidents and deaths that have happened on the stretch of road I was about to turn on to. Red flag, do you think? But the only alternative was an interstate.
Yes I really hadn’t wanted to go down the Delmarva peninsula and run into all the trouble that all those water inlets cause for cyclists in a country built for motor vehicles. But I gave in to the urgings of others to visit people.
I had enjoyed the drive across (and through) the Bridge-Tunnel though. The man who took me was black. A nice man but not too chatty, and refreshingly he wasn’t interested in me or the bike. Nowadays he only crossed the bridge once a month but when he carried grain he used to cross it every day. He said companies in Norfolk, Virginia Beach would transport employees backwards and forwards in vans or minibuses to keep costs down.
As it was dark I was deprived of the view to boot. They had begun pile-driving for a parallel bridge so they could have a north and a south-bound bridge. The existing one is single lane and very narrow. Two sections of it are mile long tunnels which allow channels into the bay. There are several man-made islands some of which hold souvenir shops. The literature proudly proclaims how the Bridge-Tunnel was renamed after its founding visionary, yet they still insist on calling it the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. And I can’t remember his name.
This house, my aunt’s, is a split-level one. On three levels, but steps aren’t my strong point so I’m staying mostly in the middle. I think I’ve worked out that what I might know as a neighbourhood or parish or an estate, is called a subdivision here. Self-explanatory but horribly regimented, and like something out of the future. Maybe America is the future.
Made all the calls, but don’t want to talk anymore. It had never occurred to me but being hit-and-run felt so much worse than being hit. That somebody could do that and not stop. The policemand said it happens all the time in Virginia Beach. People without a driving license, without insurance, or driving on drink - or all three, he said.
I keep reliving the moment of impact, and the seconds before it, the sound of the rubber on the road as the wheels advance towards you at 50mph. The noise. The hit. The rush. So when people ask me what I’m going to do now, I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.
Read from the beginning of the Cycle Across America
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