6/22/00
Shreveport, LA.
Mileage 66.8 miles
Max. 25 mph
Avg. 12.91 mph

Began early and worked hard to make it to Shreveport before 2:00 pm. I wanted to get to a bike shop for some minor work and that meant finding one and getting there with enough time to get the work done.

Communities are larger and more numerous now. In Hallsville, I stopped at the public library. It was closed and bookstore owner next door said, "You can't catch'em here very much."

Just before coming into Marshall I noted a state road sign with the words, "Don't mess with Texas. $10-$400 for littering." Elsewhere the same sign says $10 to $10,000.

In Marshall itself, I pulled up at a stop light behind a pickup truck with a memorial message to an infant daughter born in December, 1992. She had died five months later. The pick up was new which meant the owner very intently wished to remember.

Waskom looked like it had seen better days and in fact that was true. A hardware store clerk told me that years ago it had the distinction of having the most gas stations per capita in the nation. Evidently with the state line at the edge of town and cheap gas on the Texas side Louisianans came in the droves.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, and I'm glad to get it over. Getting run off the road is what I'm talking about. I was on a section of route 80 near Marshall that had no shoulder. On the steep up hills the paved shoulder is used as a slow traffic lane.

I was just over the top of a small but steep hill and rounding a curve to the right when two cars appeared suddenly close behind. The one in my lane must have swerved left because the driver in the far left lane tromped on the brakes.

As the car directly behind me loomed in my mirror and I heard the screech of brakes, I bailed to my right onto the soft shoulder. Both cars zoomed by as I careened out of control. Being a recumbent, the bike just flopped over on its side and I flipped head over wheels.

I was a little shaken up but unhurt. In thinking about it later and trying to assign fault or cause, I realized that everyone and everything had worked as it was supposed to. One driver swerved, and other braked, I left the road, the bike flopped, the toe clips released, and I rolled (gracefully in my mind but more likely an uncoordinated jumble).

Neither car stopped to see if I was OK. A third car slowed but I waved that there was no need for help.

I did not suffer any of the conditioned fear reaction that I experienced several years ago when I was hit by a car in Florida. Damage was light--I was whacked on the butt by the vehicle's sideview mirror at 40 mph. For several months afterward I felt wary while biking to work but gradually the fear faded.

But this time since there was no physical contact perhaps I avoided the body learning that came with the mirror incident. This time, I just got back on the bike and went on.