It is surprisingly warm to be so early in the morning. While I adjust the height of my seat post, sweat begins to form on my brow, just under the rim of my world champion striped helmet. It is Monday, and I am getting set for my daily commute to the office.

After checking the tire pressure of both wheels, I throw my leg over the chrome top tube of my ride. Despite getting too much sleep, I am feeling solid and start to roll on.

My Nike Dunk Gyrizo’s clip in to the pedals with ease, and I check my seating position one more time after a couple of revolutions in the saddle.

“Hmm, not quite right”, I think to myself.

Tapping out a cadence on Broadway, I am already annoyed that I’ve lowered my seat too much. My thighs are starting to burn, too early, and despite being clipped into my pedals, I am not getting a strong pull all the way around.

I try to ignore the fact that I spent thirty minutes adjusting my seat just this past weekend and it still feels uncomfortable. The breeze as I roll down Holland street does little to cool my head while the smell of breakfast wafts out of Renee’s Cafe, dancing in my nostrils for just an instant.

Once I hit Davis Sq. my stride comes of age and I begin to concentrate on the road ahead. There are no red lights just outside the square, and I turn it up just a little bit to see if I have got the legs to go hard this morning. The gusting headwind gives me an excuse to ease back as I weave my way through to Beacon Avenue and mentally welcome the downward slope towards Hampshire Boulevard.

Traffic is light as I keep my legs turning, the Bianchi rolling at 20mph according to the telltale speed-o-meter anchored on the side of the road. I move into the center of the lane, about a hundred yards ahead of the stoplight at Beacon and Kirkland.

The green light I have been staring down changes to yellow, and I am about ten feet away from the line, so I decide to sprint it out thinking this will motivate me to hammer up the slight incline on the other side of the crossing.

Halfway through my sprint, I notice a blur to my right. Out of nowhere, this toaster of an automobile, the driver doing his worse to anticipate a green light, had mashed-it-on the gas and gunned my lane, driving right across my line.

From my perspective I had no time to tap the front brake and tried to avoid a collision by turning the wheel. My body was quick to judo-flip over the handlebars when I went into the turn too hard.

A lil’ tuck-n-roll, a lil’ hip, a lil’ pelvis, and my somersault had landed me in the middle of a four-way stop. I had time to see my bike continue its olympic gymnastic tryouts a few feet in front of me.

The first crash on my fixed-gear, and a spectacular one worthy of campfire stories when I am old. There was a salad in my messenger bag, which apparently got tossed pretty well, too.

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Tossed Salad Crash is copyright © 2008, Do You KNOW Clarence?™ All rights reserved.