My spouse and I took a nice long bike ride yesterday, enjoying the sunshine and changing fall colours. When we were close to home, riding along a main arterial road, my tire hit the side of a raised sewer cover while I was going probably 18 – 20 km/hour. This caused my bike to wobble madly, but I managed to stay upright, though, no worse for wear.
Still, it was a little scary, and for the following few seconds, I saw in my mind’s eye what could have happened on a different timeline: me, tumbling off my bike, skidding along the road, causing chaos and getting pretty hurt.
It made me think about all the other tiny non-incidents I’ve had on my bike, the ones that are so small you couldn’t really call them “close calls” but still feel, deep down, like a near-miss. The ones where pedestrians step into the bike lane while looking at their phones, so you have to shout, brake, and ring your bell all at the same time. The ones where a car turning left clearly did not see you until the last second. The time I was completely at fault, cutting off a cyclist sailing along behind me in a moment of just-not-thinking, and then being surprised he didn’t yell at me at all.
I am a very careful cyclist, and only ride on a very small number of routes. But I wonder if all these tiny moments somehow accumulate on a sort of karmic abacus. These non-incidents feel like bits of good luck that I am borrowing from a gratitude bank. Each moment is a tiny withdrawal that may add up, until something catastrophic happens one day when I’ll have to repay my debt.