New Bike

Earlier this week I was biking and almost got into an accident. I was getting on to the 87 Bike Trail. The entrance is in a bad place. It's at the north end of Santa Teresa, with entrances/exits onto to the 87 and 85 freeways. I was crossing an intersection and there was a car getting off of northbound 85. The car wanted to turn right, which would put him on the on-ramp to 87 north. If you know this area, you know that this makes no sense. There is a direct ramp from 85 north to 87 north, so why get off the freeway to accomplish the same thing? The only answer I could come up with was that it was early in the morning and the metering lights were enabled on the on-ramp in question. So maybe this guy wanted to avoid the back-up from the metering lights by getting on the 85 freeway on to Santa Teresa and then getting on the 87.

Anyways, the point is that this guy didn't stop and made right turn off the 85 on to the 87 ramp. He would have probably hit me, but I saw him and swerved. The swerve caused me to miss this entrance to the bike trail and hit a high curb. I caught some air, but didn't fall off the bike. My bike took the worst of it though. It knocked the chain off and bent my back wheel. My bike already had some other issues -- the suspension was cranky and the brakes were in bad need of replacement. So Crystal wisely advised me to just get a new bike. So I did.

It's a San Rafael by Marin Bike. I bought it from Bike Connection in Palo Alto.