Crashing into a zombie festival
Sometimes bicycling to see the living dead can turn deadly
I blame it on the zombies. What else could explain the fact that I had ridden 550 miles on my bike with no serious problems, then zombies come into the picture and wham! I'm all beat up.
Last month, I rode my bike from Oregon down the coast to San Francisco. My brother lives in the town of Fremont on the east side of the southern end of the bay. He informed me that his family would be attending "Zombierama" in San Jose, Calif., and that I was invited (I don't think they wanted me for my brains). Zombierama was a mini festival attracting most of the gross, crazy, blood-thirsty weirdos for miles around -- how could I pass that up? There would be bands playing, funky food, costume contests and a pre-Halloween atmosphere. My nephews dressed as the walking dead: One had a meat cleaver through his head, the other a large butcher knife through his chest. Both had enough fake blood oozing out of their torn up T-shirts to fill a water bottle.
I decided that since San Jose was only about 15 miles away, I'd ride to the zombie fest on my bike, then continue to my sister in-law's house another 10 miles beyond after the festival.
Google maps offers a feature that shows suggested bike routes to certain places. Don't trust its suggestions. Perhaps I was under the spell of cyberspace zombies, but the route I found myself cruising along was four lanes of busy home-from-work traffic. This would not be like a country roads cruise to Firth and back.
I was blasting along at about 17 mph, when a set of railroad tracks reared up like cobras. There were large waves of asphalt in front of the first set that bounced my bike in the air a bit. The second set of tracks were running off nearly parallel to the road. My front tire dropped into the groove beside the iron rail and caused the front tire to lock in. The next thing I knew, I was slammed to the ground. Now I know what flies feel like when pounded by a swatter. It happened so fast, I never had time to be scared. I lay on the street stunned. The left side of my body felt like it no longer belonged to me. I wondered if it would be all right to just lay there and take a nap, when I looked up behind me and noticed a polite line of cars waiting and growing ever longer.
"Hey man, you all right?!" A voice came from one of the cars.
"I don't know," I responded. I slowly moved my limbs and sat up.
"Wow, you hit the ground hard," the same voice came again. A guy pulled over in front of me and parked on the shoulder and jumped out. He ran up to me. I was standing when he asked again. "You OK? Anything broken?"
I moved my arms and legs -- zombielike -- and looked at my bleeding knee and ankle. My hip and shoulder ached, but seemed to still bend in the right directions.
"I guess it's a bunch of road rash," I said. My spandex shorts and jersey had a couple of new holes in them. I could tell that blood was seeping down my shoulder.
"How's your bike?" the man asked.
I checked it over and after twisting the brake calipers back into place, everything seemed to work OK.
I thanked the man for stopping and got back on my bike and headed down the road a bit worse for wear.
Just across from San Jose State University campus, I came to a red light. I tried to pop my left foot out of the toe clip, but it didn't want to work. Struggling to get it out, I fell over on my left side again. Ouch! All the original pain came roaring back. To add to the hurt, a group of college students at the crosswalk began laughing at me. I stifled the urge to rush them and eat their brains. I stood up and the front tire was flat. I walked the bike to the sidewalk and checked my map. I figured I was only a few blocks from the Zombierama. So I decided to fix the flat when I got there. I changed out of my cycling shoes and began walking, pushing my bike with a flat tire. It turned out to be farther than I thought.
When I arrived at the festival, I felt like I fit right in with all of the people in costume, only my blood wasn't fake. When I met up with my brother's family, their first words were, "What happened to you?"
When I took my helmet off, there was a large crack on the left side. If I hadn't been wearing it, I'm sure I would have made a trip to the hospital, or worse: left brain stains for the San Jose street department to clean up.
I smeared anti-bacterial ointment on my wounds and fixed my flat tire under the watchful eyes of an 11-year-old with a meat cleaver sticking out of his head. We wandered around taking photos of the crazy people at the festival. There was the guy sawed in half (guts spilling out), a giant clown in a moo-moo carrying a chainsaw, and people with various body parts dangling in the wrong places.
I didn't continue on to my sister in-laws that evening. Instead, I went back to my brother's and bandaged up. The next day, I studied all the roads in more depth and found a pleasant route to my sister in-laws.
On my hip, a pancake-sized bruise was developing with pretty purples and greens. It gave me something to show off whenever I talked about the zombie fest.
Back in Idaho, I showed my wife my war wounds. The bruise was migrating down my leg like a giant colorful ameba just under the skin.
"That'll teach you," she said. "What did you expect hanging out with zombies."
I'm not sure what it taught me. I still have the urge to attend the next zombie festival.
