You Should Have Seen the Other Guy

“Boy, your face looks awful!”

“Ya think? You shoulda seen the other guy!”

Well, I did as much damage as I could to that pick-up truck, but I barely dented the tailgate. If you look carefully at the picture, you’ll notice that the part where my jaw hit was covered in a vinyl material, not metal. Just another of the amazing pieces of luck I had. I got as soft a landing as possible, the only place on the whole truck where it was slightly padded. I imagine that saved a lot of external facial damage.

Also, notice that there is really no other damage to the truck, except the indentation caused by my initial impact. My bike did not hit the truck, my upper head did not hit the truck.

Speaking of my bike, when I took it into to the guys at Old Town (my LBS), they immediately pointed out the one fatal flaw I had missed. The back side of the head tube, as it pulled out of the head set, got bent outward, creating a small lip. This makes it impossible to simply get a new fork and steering tube. The head tube is irreparably damaged. On an ordinary bike, this would mean the entire frame is trashed.

But I have no ordinary bike! Since it breaks apart in two pieces, in theory the front half should be replaceable, saving the entire rear triangle, which is much the more complicated half of a frame. I’ve asked them to call some frame builders to see if we can get the front parts of the head, top and down tubes replaced, and the S&S couplers placed back onto the ends. See the pictures below. The part that looks like a unicycle is the part we save; the part with the handlebars goes.

Finally, how did I get those pictures of the truck? Courtesy of the Federal Government, which investigated my accident and found me at fault. So they sent me a bill for $917.32 for damage to the truck. Insult to injury, you might think, but, yes, it’s true, legally, it was my responsibility to avoid hitting a slower moving vehicle on the road in front of me, no question about that. I’ll be calling my car insurance and home insurance (same company) to see if they will cover part of it.

One way or the other, I’m going to get a new bike out of this. If the frame can be repaired, then I’ll be buying a real road bike; if not, then a new time trial bike. Cervelo is my brand of choice, carried at my Local Bike Shop.