Doc Holliday

            Late on Sunday afternoon I went for a bike ride. While I was riding east on Bloor, at around Ossington a car, desperate it seemed for a parking space, cut suddenly in front of me. I managed to avoid full impact but my front wheel did clip the left side of his back bumper, causing me to lose my balance and go down in front of a car that was coming up behind me. It stopped and I got up to confront the guy. He seemed legitimately concerned about my well-being and assured me that he didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t think that he’d knocked me off my bike for fun but I told him that he’d been careless. He said he knew and confessed that he was shaking. The fall slightly bruised my leg below the knee and my bike felt sticky afterwards but I was able to continue my ride at a pretty good pace.

            A short guy with a little mountain bike passed me on the Danforth with his legs going so quickly it was comical. Circumstances more so than speed kept me from passing him even though I was pedaling at half his rate of rotation. I was about to pass him once but then he went out to pass someone ahead of him and I would have had to go even further out so I held back. He stopped at around Pape.

            When I got to Parkview Hills I felt that my bike was dragging a bit. I stopped and had a look at the back brakes, which is normally the problem when the bike is resisting movement but they seemed to be fine. Finally I noticed that it was the front wheel that was catching because the left gearshift had been moved by the impact of the fall so that it was pressing against the front brake cable and causing the pads to press into the front wheel. I moved the gearshift back into position and the wheels flowed smoothly again, although I still thought I felt a bit of drag, though maybe it was my imagination.

            I finished exploring Parkview Hill Crescent. On one of the side streets a couple of young girls were playing basketball and blocking my way until they saw me.
            On the way back there was very little bike traffic on the Danforth. I took Yonge to College and then College to Brock.

            That night I watched an episode of Maverick featuring a tubercular Doc Holliday. From what I’ve read about Holloday’s ill health and gambling it was a fairly accurate portrayal of the historical figure.