Accident Aftermath

So, here's the bike. As you can see, the seat-stay is quite severely bent, causing the wheel to be badly askew. I really don't know if the rest of the frame is out of alignment, but I suspect it may be. The real question is whether it can be properly aligned, once a new seatstay is installed.

No, the real question is "how much will all this cost?"

I was going to go into great detail about what happened, how it wasn't my fault, how the SUV driver was inattentive when she hit me, how she said one thing to me ("I didn't see you.") but another to the police ("He went through a stop sign."). But really dwelling on this is only negativity that won't help the situation.

I have few legal remedies. No matter whose fault it was, I was literally a half-inch long blue smudge on her chrome bumper: not even a scratch or a dent, just a smudge that will wipe off with a moist rag! Meanwhile, my bike has been severely damaged. However, as that damage is less than one thousand dollars, her insurance won't cover it. All I can do is appeal to her sense of fair play to recompense me for my damages, or take her to Small Claims Court; I don't expect to be successful with either option, but I'll try.

If repairable, it's likely still going to cost several hundred dollars. If not, a new frame will be required on which to hang the rest of the bike (all of which, fortunately, was undamaged).

Now that I've had about 24 hours to calm down, here's what I know:

1) The driver of the SUV, whether culpable (as I believe her to be) or not, did not mean to harm me. She was inattentive and negligent to be sure, but she didn't want to hit me. Who would want to have to sit around for 90 minutes for cops to show up and write up reports and the like? So, I bear her no ill will, and (even though she claims to have done nothing wrong) I forgive her for her transgression.

2) I'm relatively unharmed. A couple of sore knees, sore elbow, mid-back, neck (and resulting headache). Nothing severe, nothing that I didn't expect after hitting the pavement as I did. I'll be fine in a day or two. My helmet worked marvelously, as I actually landed on my back and my head whipped back and hit the street. This is at least the third or fourth time my helmet has saved me from a concussion or worse. As one of the ambulance attendants said to me yesterday (they were called as a precaution, then sent away), "You're a walking, talking advertisement for bike helmets!" My bike can be replaced or written off, but my health can't. This could have been much worse (she missed my knee by about six inches or less).

3) I love all my bikes, but I'm glad it wasn't my Fondriest. Steel tends to be much more repairable than aluminium. A blow like that to an aluminium frame would likely mean the death of that frame. So, if I had to choose a frame on which to have yesterday's accident, it would be my steel road frame. Again, this could have been much worse.

I'm off the bike again today; it's rainy and slick anyway, so I'd have likely not ridden even if everything was good. We'll see about tomorrow. Definitely back on the road by Monday.

It will all work out - it always does...