The Crash Call....

The pick up call is an annoyance – but when your biker is out an a ride and the phone rings, driving out to pick up a cold, lonely biker standing next to a limping, flat tired bike or bonked into a quivering, child-like wreck, is not the first thing that runs through a bikewife’s mind. The first thing is ‘don’t let this be a crash call…’

I’ve made a few crash calls myself. Not because I crashed – I’ve always managed to hitch up my skirt and make my own way home. No, but I have had to call bike wives when their bikers have crashed. It doesn’t feel good, and I know what they are thinking. It’s even worse when you receive the crash call.

The first crash call I got was not too bad, but being a ‘crash call virgin’, I of course overreacted. My biker called, sounding very stressed, and said he’d crashed his bike going off the road into a fence. The front wheel was trashed (my race wheels by the way, but that’s for another post), and the bike was unrideable. Please could I come get him right away. He sounded upset, but if he’s talking he’s breathing, and it wasn’t too cold or wet outside. Nowadays, I’d take my time over a call like that (especially if I find out he’s crashed while using my gear), but being new to the crash call, I was out the door in a flash.

So off I set, this time at least along roads I knew well and not too far from home, following his description of his route and where he was. No sign of him. I drove up and down that stretch of road, and still no biker, no wheel, no mangled bike. I asked a jogger, a farmer, everyone I passed if they’d seen my biker. No one had any idea. By now I was frantic.

I called and called on my cell phone. I parked the car at the point that matched the description of his last known location. Now I on foot, climbed a fence, and was looking through underbrush and piles of cow poo for some sign that my biker had passed this way, dead or alive. All the time I’m yelling at my cell phone for poor reception and calling and calling again. Finally, he answers.

Him: ‘What’s up?’

Me: Where the Hell are you? Are you okay? Where the Hell are you? What happened? Where the Hell are you?

Him: Oh, I’m at home. The wheel wasn’t that bad after all so I rode back.

Me: silence.

Click.

He was not home when I arrived. Smart guy.

The next crash call shows how much I’ve evolved as a bike wife. One morning we’d had a spat about him riding too much, in ridiculous conditions, or inadequately prepared. I went to work in a huff. I called him at work, and was told ‘Oh he’s not here. He went out on a bike ride.’ I looked out the window. Pouring rain and wind. Jerk. I suggested that they pass a message on to him when he got back, but I don’t think they wrote it down.

I go into a meeting, and sensing something might happen – we bike wives have an intuition about these things – I took my cell phone with me. I apologized to my colleagues, but explained my husband was out on a bike ride in completely unsuitable weather and I had left a message for him to check in when he got back (that wasn’t quite the tone of the message, but you get the point). Sure enough, a half hour into the meeting it rings. It’s his phone. I scowl, glare at my phone, and hit ‘ignore’. 

I told you not to ride today...

When my meeting is over I pick up my phone and check my voicemail, expecting a sheepish, apologetic ‘So sorry honey’ message. Instead, it’s a message from him, but he’s at the local ER after a crash – and by local, I mean local to my office, not his (meaning he chose to ride at least a 30 mile round trip into a city). His message began with with ‘I’m okay…but…’ .  I was now experienced enough to not have that initial flash of panic  - he was, after all, able to speak, which meant there was still scope for me to kill him.

I packed up my things and set off for the hospital. When I arrived, I was assured he would be okay but he needed some stitches, and directed to his cubicle. I took a minute to shake off that last little bit of ‘what if…’ that all bike wives who get a crash call have, but we never let show.  As I came around the corner and found him, it was pretty clear what he’d been discussing with the nurse. They both looked at me like rabbits staring down the barrel of a carrot farmer’s shotgun. The nurse put down her implements, and simply said, ‘I’ll leave you two alone’. She couldn’t have got any closer to the wall as she squeezed past me.

Me: ‘Good thing we’re in the emergency room…’