Nik does Dallas: Stupidity Should Hurt

Suggested soundtrack: “Bicycle Race” by Queen

Hey, all! It’s time for an update, and then a little story time.
Remember the beater bike from last post? Well, with a little help from Andrew I got her up and running.
A new chain:

Tires!

I just got all this work finished Friday, so I wanted to take it out for a ride. A situation presented itself in the form of “Taste Addison,” an outdoor festival in a suburb of Dallas. Addison is the place you go out drinking and see a lot of the pretentious douchebags that give Dallas a bad name.

My friend Daniel just got a cool bike, and he lives in Addison, so I convinced him that we should ride our bikes to the festival. He was reluctant but he agreed. The only problem is that Addison is really really bike unfriendly, as only a master-planned suburb comprised of housing developments and strip malls can be, which is to say no bike lanes and intermittent sidewalks. It was treacherous. But we made it and had fun on the way. After the ride, Daniel was fully converted to a bike lover.

This festival itself was a very good time. The Black Crowes, those hippy-rock throwbacks, were live on stage and jammed the fuck out. We were under the influence and the show was great. Afterward, we went to a local bar and got even more drunker.

Everything was perfect, then…

Let’s take a moment here to go over the reasons why you should always, always ride your bike in the street, namely a) the street is smooth, straight and usually well-lit, and b) the sidewalk, by comparison, is fraught with peril in the form of uneven concrete, large cracks, sharp turns, road signs, fire hydrants, low-hanging branches, and debris.

But at two in the morning, when the streets are full of drunks hauling ass to get home, and there are no bike lanes, what are two intoxicated guys to do? Take the sidewalk home, of course.

Which is why, today, I am hurting.

Observe the fruits of my stupidity:

That last picture bears a striking resemblance to an injury I sustained in England many years ago, while playing in the goat pen next to Stonehenge:

Last night, arriving injured at Daniel’s place, we found out that he had no bandages and hardly any paper towels. So, for my hand I put a paper towel on the wound and secured it with my belt:

And for my elbow, we used one of Daniel’s sister’s panty liners. Lint-free and sticky, it’s like a giant band-aid! I have no pictures of this, sadly, but the counter guy at Dunkin’ Donuts asked about it.

I got home after stocking up on bandages at the Walgreens (“Dude, what happened to your hand?” says the clerk), and with the supplies at hand…