Kiwis can fly....

The culprit.

...its just the landing that we haven't figured out yet.

The picture above is the front wheel of my town bike here in Denmark. It looks like a normal front wheel, right? Look a little closer, between the front fork and the mudguard. Notice anything strange? What is that piece of mudguard doing there, wrapped up permanently in the front wheel?

I was on my way to Danish lessons on Tuesday night, and I was running a little late, as usual. To make up for it, I took off from here at a decent speed. I had settled into my rhythm, and was about a kilometre down the road when events unfolded rather unexpectedly and rapidly. Somehow, part of the mudguard got caught up in the front wheel, was ripped off the frame, and sucked through the front fork. This would have been ok, except that it was still attached to the actual bike - the net result was that the front wheel locked, and I was thrown over the handlebars. Even worse, my legs got caught on the handlebars, slamming me directly down into the concrete. Net result, a split chin, NO skin on my hands, a seriously bent front fork on the bike (US$180 to fix, thank you very much: value of bike about $250) and a generally sore and bloody Mark. I ended up carrying the bike home, and spending the rest of the night limping around the house. I'm still rather sore, and don't think I'll be getting back on that bike for a while....

And then, just to complete the misery, staying up all night to watch the election resulted in a tired, sore, and bloody Mark, and a victory for W. A picture is worth a thousand words.