Anyone who's seen Foster Avenue in the last month or so knows how dangerous it is, what with all the construction and road work. Last I checked, the section of bikepath between Maxon Road Extension and Seneca Street isn't scheduled to be open to joggers and cyclists until sometime in July.
That means following a pretty harrowing detour that on Tuesday took me past one of those monster dump trucks with wheels that could make a Wile E. Coyote pancake out of somebody. It's an absolute mess.
I know, it seems unnecessary to warn people about being careful around construction sites, but even a marginally intelligent person like myself can channel his inner Three Stooges and get hurt. A few weeks ago, on an awful, rainy, gray day, I took a turn down Peek Street for no good reason on my way home, headed up the old part of Maxon that runs into Nott Street and came upon a stretch of road that had been cut away to lay some pipe underground or something.
It was about the width of a sidewalk, so I could've just hurdled it, but at the last second I decided it looked like solid ground - wet, muddy, but flat, solid ground - and tried to pussyfoot my way over it. There was no way around it. Bad move. It was actually freshly poured concrete, so my left leg sank a foot deep ... and down goes Frazier! I scraped up my knee on the pavement on the other side, and after apologizing to some workers who were off to the side, I sprinted the remaining half-mile home, soaked in mud and wet (but quickly drying) cement.
You see, I was wearing a practically brand-new pair of Nikes ($85) that I got as a Christmas present and had just broken out of the box. Horrified, I threw them in the washing machine, and they came out pretty clean.
The point is, it happened to me, it could happen to you, so please be careful out there, especially when you're starting to get tired. There's all kinds of bad pavement and holes. Plus, there's been three auto collisions within a block of my apartment in the last month or so. Don't take risks crossing busy streets like Union and Nott. If you're running or cycling and get paired up against a car, that car wins every time.
