Posted on 05/20/2014 3:01:29 PM PDT by NYAmerican
This weekend I missed my first posting at PJ Media since beginning in 2006.
Why? Let me briefly explain the lapse — if I can be forgiven for comparing a bike accident with what I have seen on the farm the last 50 years (sliced off fingers, crushed legs, herbicide poisonings, manifold burns, etc.).
I was going on a usual morning bike ride — safe stuff with like-minded older folks. I’m 60; so is my biking partner and fellow Hoover Institution associate Bruce Thornton. We are hardly reckless. (Not like sulfuring at midnight recklessly in one’s 20s in the old days without goggles or mask.)..........
(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...
Guess he’ll miss participating in the next X Games.
That was an uncomfortable read.
I’ll be advising against carbon frames from here on out.
“What happened? Apparently a hairline fissure around the carbon bike fork failed, and the fork bent and locked up the front wheel without warning. (Yes, I know I should inspect the bike thoroughly each time I get on, but the crack was invisible.)”
Thank goodness he is okay. It really does give you an appreciation for the times we live in - at least medically. If you had taken a tumble like that off a horse in 1652, your life would be altered to a monstrous degree (if you had even survived). Reminds me of the scene in “There Will Be Blood” where he breaks his leg down in a hole in the middle of west Texas. I mean, the bleak ghaastly feeling you would have knowing nobody is around for miles of sheer emptiness. It’s a wonder we humans survived our most primitive years.
Next time, think I'll walk. No sudden stops at 15-20mph. Walking appears to be probably the safest exercise, least hard on your body. The Bay Area is a Heavenly Paradise for walkers with mucho trails, wonderful weather, and gorgeous views. Too bad all that good stuff is under such oppressive Leftist rule.
We need more clear-thinking people like this out of the ivory-tower think tanks and on the ground fighting the Leftist coup d'état.
I was returning from a job in Tracy CA one day, driving down one of the main drags there, and watched a guy biking at a good clip up the street in the opposite direction.
All of the sudden it looked like he hit an invisible force field or brick wall. I was shocked, I knew he was hurt, I flipped a U in the street traffic and went back. His face had taken to the pavement like it was a large pencil eraser trying to delete wording on sandpaper.
I was looking around and he, coming to his senses and becoming coherent, noted that he had his sweater slung over the handle bars and an arm of it had flopped free and upon falling into the front wheel instantly pulled the whole thing down into the front brake assembly and stopped forward momentum.
It was one of those kind of bike wrecks that makes you hurt just to see it.
Property rights are the basis of a free society. VDH knows this - most Americans are oblivious. When they only exist on paper and not reality (because they soon won't exist on paper either) America is no better than Venezuela or the Congo.
Carbon - what your new airliners are made of....
Did he slide forward and now has a higher pitch voice.....?
To anyone who goes to the link, check out the “Angry Reader” letters and his responses. They have a “napalm in the morning” feel; shallow idiots should not match wits with a thinker.
If I had injuries like what he described there’s no way I could think clearly enough to write. Get well soon, Buddy.
A great man with a tough accident. Get well soon.
I love Hanson, but when he came out for Amnesty a couple of months ago, I was NOT HAPPY.
I also think it’s stupid for adults to ride bicycles...but it is their right. Eventually they will get clocked, although this one was weird.
Maybe, just maybe some sense has now been knocked into him and he will oppose amnesty.
That would be great - I love most of his writings. Just from his experience on his farm, he gets into stuff that people have NO CLUE about.
Tis true...bike riding is dangerous....my face has also hit the pavement, fortunatley my injuries were much less serious then Mr. Hanson’s. I don’t know, though, if I would go as far as calling the practice “stupid”......virtually any outdoor activity has risks, I suppose it’s just another choice we all make. Or USED to make, at some point in the near future our governement masters will make these decisions for us......
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.