-Adelaide rides on my bike.
-Megan wears a helmet.
-I know CPR.
-I know how to fix bikes.
-I only had to worry about 3 of the 4 above issues.
It started with May finding two early "Summer Days" (for those of you who don't know, Summer Days is the one to three week summer celebration of Megan's birthday) presents on her bike. The first is a new rear bike rack with a fold away basket (she wants to start using the bike for simple grocery store runs) and new bicycle shorts (the ones with the pads inside to make the trip a little less straining on the human saddle area).
Then we hit the trail for a 25 mile Up-to-Bridal-Veil-Falls-and-back ride. The ride was fun, refreshing, and uneventful for the first 18 to 20 miles. At one point I pulled alongside Megan so Adelaide could spank May's butt (a family favorite). Addie missed and as I continued to pass, Megan's handlebar got caught in Addie's rear seat. It turned Megan right and then left, and then up and over. That's right. Up and over. She fell headfirst into the bike path. When I heard the crunch of her helmet on the concrete my heart sank. I pulled over just in time for Adelaide and me to see her flip the bike up and over herself after crashing to the ground. I pulled Addie out and rushed to Megan. There was a rock the size of a giant gumball lodged into Megan's helmet. Road rash on her back. Scrapes on her elbow and an impact crater, from landing on a rock, in her hand.
After some tears (I think more from Addie than Megan. She was pretty shaken up about it), I pulled Megan up, got the rock out of her helmet, and put the chain back on her bike.
We even stopped in at the store for groceries and got lunch before getting home. May's a trooper. I tried to tell her that tears in the shower that come from scrubbing asphalt out of wounds is not wimpy.
Now her back kind of looks like this.
She's just grateful she had that helmet on and so am I. I had never heard the crunching sound a helmet makes on a headfirst impact. I can go without that again. Every time I hit the ground growing up it was without a helmet and I show the effects from that every day.
Well, now May is fine and I am too as long as she continues to forget that this whole thing was my fault.

