Annie Can't Win

After our great ride on Sunday Annie's confidence was just about all the way back and her lingering aches and pains were just about gone. But it seems she just can't win. This morning just at the end of our ride she collided with a dog. Said dog was not leashed and its owner was sauntering along the path some yards distant from the site of the crash. The level of inconsiderateness, stupidity, irresponsibility and self-centered-ness is astounding. The dog walkers, I've said from the beginning, are the worst offenders hands down among the various people who make sharing a multi-use trail difficult. They have no sense of where they are as long as their little puppies have the freedom to do whatever they need to do. We were furious, but, thankfully, it does not appear that Annie was seriously hurt. Her right side did take another hit and until we see how sore she gets we won't know for sure. Her glasses were bent, her head did hit, although not hard, so a new helmet may be in order and the bike will definitely have to be looked at again. The fenders, at the very least, look mis-aligned. I was so angry and so helpless. If it would not have taken hours I would have called 911 just to get a cop to cite the girl. It is, after all, illegal to walk a dog without a leash. We are amazed at how much we try to not only obey the rules of the path, but extend ourselves in the interest of politeness. Always calling out "bikes passing on the left" and so on and how many people just don't care. Cyclists who shoot by us on the left without a word, walkers walking 3 and 4 abreast plugged into ipods, skateboarders and dog walkers oblivious to everything. It really does suggest that the safest place to ride is in the road, but I'm not sure I could get Annie to go for that, especially since we ride when it is still dark and rush hour traffic is just getting going. What a bummer. And to top it off, the weather is still lousy.