Is cycling dangerous?

Well, yeah. But dammit, Jim, so is walking. I suspect that along with crumby strip joints, Portland has more sidewalk upheaval per capita than any other city in the U.S. When it's dark out and the ground is covered with leaves, those sidewalks will jump right up and knock the crud out of you.



The result, a boatload of broken fingers, toes, and elbows. Some of those fingers look like this :

Yes, that's my swollen paw up there complete with the surgeon's YES scrawled across the top with an arrow pointing at the small finger so as to make sure they didn't operate on the wrong one. Apparently that's the technical term for the pinkie, small finger. Who knew?

What seems to have been good luck is that I didn't crack my elbow. What wasn't so good is that the knuckle joint shattered. Hence the 3 hour fiestaval of surgery. Also the six weeks of absolutely no use of Mr. Lefty under any circumstances. The keyboarding with one hand ain't so bad, but those Levi's button fly jeans are hell.