After several years of riding I finally went down. On the motorcycle. It wasn’t too scary because I wasn’t in any danger of actually colliding with any other vehicles and it was on a street in Brooklyn.

That’s not to say that it wasn’t a terrifying experience. Long story short: An 18 wheeler was parked on the other side of the road (on Flushing at Broadway) and, for those who may know, Flushing bends slightly going towards Bushwick. A black SUV had decided that it was necessary to go around the parked tractor trailer by putting himself in my lane … and thus causing me to swerve to my right, lose control and fly over the handlebars.

Problem was that there was also a vehicle parked on my side of the road. This truck was parked further back so I didn’t actually think, in that split second, that I was going to collide with it but I did know that I had to stop. It was during the swerving and breaking I lost control of the front end of the bike. The SUV went by me on my left and as I was slowing and the front end was bucking left and right I went over the handlebars.

I landed on my left side. I don’t actually recall the flight … in fact I don’t recall leaving the bike at all. I just remember the bike coming to a stop due to the shaking of the front end and me losing control.

There I was in the road and I immediately got up. I felt OK except for my left hip. I simply walked to the curb and sat down … helmet still on. It was a minute or so when finally someone came up to me to ask if I was OK. He and another guy got my bike on the side with me and that was that.

No cars stopped. No pedestrians were asking me anything. I took off my helmet and gave myself the once over to make sure nothing was broken or damaged (I was fully dressed in leather jacket, heavy jeans which didn’t rip at all, leather gloves and leather boots). Thankfully I hadn’t endured any burns or head injuries. I was coherent and was thinking what the hell was I going to do.

I asked a few Chinese guys on the side of the road if they’d seen anything and none of them spoke English. No other people were forthcoming and at that moment I was really depressed. I couldn’t believe that but ONE GUY had come to my aide…and then just left.

So I took inventory of the bike (no major damage, just cosmetics and, of course, the handlebars) and realized that the clutch lever had snapped. So I couldn’t get on the bike even if I wanted.

So I walked it home.

Time to buy a new set of handlebars.