Yesterday I fell off my bike. (Spoiler: I’m completely fine, nobody panic.)

I’ve been struggling with training, not so much the riding itself, but how alone it is. For a bunch of reasons all related to &^%&ing covid, training has been lonely this year and I get worn down by the idea of hours and hours on the bike alone and it takes a huge leap of will to get me out there. When I first learned this about myself a few years ago I was pretty surprised. For the most part I enjoy time alone and find myself pretty good company, usually that time recharges my batteries and stokes my creative fires. (Why, yes gentle reader, this has been a challenge over the last few years as Joe has worked from home and is able to supervise me all day.) I’d have imagined these long rides, hours and hours on the bike (unsupervised) easy for me. I’d hook up with a good audiobook and fly off, but it turns out that really only works for the first three hours or so and then it’s like the whole thing triggers whatever part of my psyche is responsible for self-esteem to start working against me. (“Alone again eh? Where are your friends? Don’t have any? Shall we spend the next 50km reflecting on the disastrous elements of your personality and past mistakes that have left you here?”) I know it’s a trick of the circumstances and I just have to endure it, but I am truly surprised that I am so bad at being alone on the bike when I am so good at it everywhere else. This realization has made something crystal clear for me -there is only one thing missing when I am on the bike, only one element of who I am as a person that I don’t have with me when I ride, and that is knitting.

It turns out that I am not good at being alone, but rather good at knitting alone, and this means that my best friend is knitting and knitting is what I find to be good company, and I know that this would sound bonkers to any other group in the world, dear Blog, but I’ve known this for a while. I’m a dork who’s best friend is inanimate and rather yarnish – but has always been there for me and never let me down, not in the fifty years we’ve been together, so knitting (and how I wish I could be with it while I ride) was what I was thinking about as I left the house yesterday for a 70km cycle. (That’s about three or four hours on a bike – depending. Can you imagine how many socks I could finish the Rally week if it were possible to knit and cycle?)

In no particular order, I was thinking about:

-How the Team Knit fundraising yarn that Indigodragonfly dyed for us this year had arrived and I need to wind it and start knitting – It’s going to be my Rally knitting this year. (I have four skeins and clearly, high hopes.)

-How happy I am with the Deschain I just finished and I wonder what else I could wear it with besides that black dress although that’s sort of working.

(Yarn is a fab 100% cotton from Berrocco called Estiva. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would – it’s got a tape/chainette construction so it’s springier and more fun than I usually think cotton will be. It’s also sadly discontinued but maybe you’ll find some around.

I used just 2.5 balls for this wonder.) I made it an extra two repeats longer because absolutely nothing about my body, age, or personality screams with a desire for a crop top. (Since childhood I have considered my belly button mine alone and nothing about middle age has changed this.)

-That despite wearing my linen Donner almost daily, I still don’t have good pictures of it and I really need to get that done.

-Also when I get home I really have to order my Cozy Knitter advent skein because even though it is freaking scorching out winter is coming.

-Oh, that if I can find a few hours where I don’t have to ride a bike I’ll be finished my Malaquite Tee.

I’ve knit the body and the sleeves and now I’ve just got to sew them together and knit the neckband. So close, so close.

Also I was reflecting that if I could drag myself away from River Ripples I probably would have finished that tee shirt by now and that really my ability to be monogamous to a project hasn’t really changed much over the years, and as a matter of fact, might be worse.

I was thinking about all of this (and a few other knitting related things, as I turned at the bottom of my street and started travelling in the bike lane to the road that takes me down to the Waterfront Trail. (It’s my go-to for riding alone because it’s really long -more than 3600km, but at least in these parts it’s used enough that I feel like there could always be a bit of help if you were in trouble.) So I’m cycling along, and there’s the usual amount of traffic for the city, and I’m mentally winding yarn, trying on sweaters and mucking with mattress stitch while looking ahead (I should order more of that linen from Espace Tricot it was nice) and I see that the light has turned yellow (I’ll block the pieces of that Tee later so it’s easier to seam) so I automatically start to gear down (I wonder if that River Ripples will be much longer after it’s washed) start to slow down (is that swatch still on my desk so I can do the math?) and gracefully come to a complete stop at the light. (I love knit/purl stitch patterns. I should do one on the Rally socks.)

Next thing I know, I am lying splayed in the bike lane, half on the sidewalk, across the curb, utterly flattened, and before I can figure out what happened I hear the cyclist behind me say “wow.” I start to scramble up but I’m still attached to my bike by my shoe clips and so I have to sort of lift the bike so I can swing my ankles to release it all the while saying “I”m fine, I’m fine, go around me, go around me” and wondering (for the 938356th time in my life if you could actually die of embarrassment, because here, darling blog, is what happened.

I came to an efficient, well timed and appropriate stop, and then – because I was thinking about knitting and not bike riding, I just… stopped. I didn’t unclip, I didn’t put my foot down. I didn’t even try to do those things. I simply stopped, and then as I reflected on seed stitch vs moss, on cables with dropped stitches, and on straight and tidy seams and pretty sweaters…

I let gravity take me.

I picked myself up and checked myself over and aside from a wicked bruise or two and a scraped knee I had to soak rather a large amount of gravel out of, I’m fine. As usual the biggest injury is to my pride – and to my bike since I tore my handlebar tape, but that’s pretty fixable I think. I got back on my bike and headed for home, having decided while lying in the dirt that maybe it wasn’t my day, but as I got closer to the house my knee stung a little less and my dignity (having had much practice) sprang back and I took a deep breath, thought about my goals and how close the Rally is and turned myself around again, and went to finish my 70km. I am feeling very good and adult about that.

The fall did – um, let’s call it “refocus” me on what I’m supposed to be doing, if rather painfully. For the next two weeks until the Rally I’ve got a few goals. First, I’m hoping that Team Knit will meet their fundraising goals. We’ve got a long way to go. Here’s our links for fundraising – our goals are on those pages and you can see that like almost everything this year- we’re behind.

Me

Ken

Cameron

Pato

Second, to inspire you to help me find ways to meet those goals – I’m going to try and blog as much as I can between now and departure, and I’m hoping we can get into a lovely rhythm. I’m inspired by your giving to write – maybe you’re inspired by the writing to help PWA and maybe we can all see that the people they serve have what they need for the next year. I can’t thank you enough for getting us all as far as you have.

Third I am going to finish that Tee before thinking about it breaks my arm or something.