PSA: Use extreme caution on Oxford St @ Cambridge/Somerville line

[meanfreepath]

This morning, I was biking to work down Oxford St as I usually do. Oxford has been a mess of potholes for a while, and I really don't enjoy riding it; I do primarily because it is more direct, has less traffic, and fewer lights than Mass Ave. This winter the pothole situation went from annoying to downright dangerous, and of late the situation has been exacerbated by the water main construction that has caused large portions of the street to be dug up and additional potholes to be formed by the passage of heavy construction vehicles.

So I was going down Oxford, and tried to dodge a pothole -- and the next thing I knew I was down on the ground with my bike on top of me. I got extensive scrapes on my hands and elbows, ruined the shirt I was wearing, and gave the handlebars some dings, but otherwise avoided serious damage to myself or my bike. Fortunately no one was driving behind me at the time. One of my labmates kindly helped me clean up when I got into work.

I've talked to a few people and apparently the consensus is that it's better to just go through a pothole (or, if one has sufficiently good bike handling skills and pedal clips, to jump the pothole) than to swerve around it. Lesson learned, I guess. I do hope they finish the Oxford St construction soon; I've had close calls on it before (the most serious one being a dumb failure to take the entire lane, and a subsequent pothole swerve bringing me overly close for comfort to a car that was trying to pass me) and the condition of the pavement is so bad that it really is only a matter of time before someone gets seriously injured or killed.

It was a somewhat embarrassing accident -- Ed called me over at teatime right before rehearsal this afternoon. Apparently he too had been driving down Oxford St right before my crash, and had seen me down in the middle of the road through his rear-view mirror. He had wanted to stop, but because of the construction and the police trying to wave traffic through there was nowhere to pull over.

Comments

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Yeep! Glad you're okay, and gah at Oxford. Hope it gets fixed soon.

~Kat

[adfamiliares.livejournal.com]

Ouch! I hate falling off my bike.

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

I hope you heal quickly.

[mst3kforall.livejournal.com]

Geez, that is scary! I am glad you are (mostly) all right. When I had a bike, I used to slow for potholes when possible. Also, always treat cars as unpredictable clueless things which may not see the obvious, and to the extent possible try to be predictable, yourself. A surprising number of car drivers do not know the signals for right, left, stop/slow down (didn't we all have to know that to pass the written exam?). Again, glad you are all right! And good for you for warning people about the location.