me and my bike vs a King Cab F-150... guess who won.

So I'm riding home from work, about 2 miles into my 14 mile ride.  Cruising around 25mph in a 35mph zone.  I'm on the far right of a 4 lane divided road, so two lanes each way.  I notice the big red F-150 up ahead stopped waiting to turn left across the two lanes.  So when does she turn? yup, just in time to cut me off.  It's been drizzling out, so the roads are a little wet, I've been on my hoods (too many obstacles in the road for me to be on the aerobars thankfully).  I see her turn and immediately try to slow down, wet roads don't help this situation though.

So I have 3 options... 1) try to make a sharp 90 degree turn on wet roads at ~15+mph and hope I don't lay the bike down and slide under the truck.  2) swerve left to try to go around the back end of the truck, possibly cutting off a car that might be in the far left lane, and still hope I don't slide out.  3) Keep the bike upright and try to minimize my impact speed with the side of the truck.

I chose option 3 somewhere in those fractions of a second you have to react.  I guestimate that I probably got down to like 14-15mph.  Front wheel makes contact with the truck first, snapping the carbon fork, aerobars make contact next into the side of the car (putting a good dent there),  then I think my head/helmet makes contact with the door frame near the bottom left of the window, my shoulder/side of my arm then slams into the side of the truck.  I leave scrape marks all down the side of the truck as the truck continues to move forwards onto the side street.  Somehow during all that I managed to get unclipped from the pedals and I'm now standing in the road, hands still on the brakes, and I look down and no longer have a front tire there.

I'm lucky, no major injuries, just some cuts, scrapes, and what I hope is just some sore muscles in my hand and upper arm.  The bike wasn't as lucky.  Snapped cables, snapped fork, slightly bent front wheel, and hopefully no frame damage (I'll be letting the LBS inspect everything though).  My helmet probably saved me from some major injuries though, it's cracked and my head is not... so score one for Trek Helmets.  I lost a lense  to my smith glasses though... turns out it's actually in the back of the truck and she's going to be nice enough to give it back.

But even with all that, I have two weeks until my A race that I've been training for for 9 months.  My first HIM!  and now I'm bikeless!  Talk having a story about my first HIM before I even get to do it yet.

Be careful out there everyone, wear your helmet, and check the back of the truck if you're missing gear after an accident. Oh, and she got a failure to yield ticket and a court date she has to show up at, I got to call a friend to come pick me up.  Luckily two doors down was a bar, so I stopped and treated myself to a Guinness after dealing with the Police and waiting for my friend.

Here's some pictures: