But I’m biking to work Friday. Pedal bike. This is cause for some trepidation for Mrs. Watson because the last time I biked to work, I broke my shoulder and needed five stitches in my left eyebrow. I would like to blame the City of Charlotte for my unfortunate bike accident but alas, I cannot. Well, not much anyway.

I was pedaling (slowly) southbound along Graham near Atando (ominously, there’s a gravestone company nearby) when my thin tire slipped off the railroad tracks that angle across the street and I went down fast. It was like biking on ice. Fall down. Go boom. If I could have put my arm out to brace myself I would have broken my wrist. As it was, I didn’t have time. Saw stars. Sharp pain. So much so I felt like I was going to throw up. I had the brief presence of mind to drag myself to the curb otherwise I would have been road kill.

The thing I remember most – some nice guy – all I could see with my glasses broken was that he was a young black guy driving a small car with a carseat in the back – stopped and gave me one of those handtowels like you’d keep in your bathroom. The towel was clean and smelled like sweet soap, the kind of small soaps you’d see in a little bowl by the bathroom sink. I told him – man, that’s all right, you don’t want blood all over your bath towel. He told me – naw, keep it. And he offered me a ride. I mumbled a thank you but called my wife on the cell instead. If I didn’t look so pitiful when she pulled up in the mininvan, I think she would have clubbed me. You see, she didn’t think this whole bike-to-work thing was a particularly smart idea.

Here’s the thing. You can put up all the bright green “Share the road” signs you want. Without consistent bike lanes (not those abbreviated lanes-to-nowhere) or north-south greenways (the Clark Creek/Mallard Creek Greenway is a GREAT start if you’re bound for UNCC) or at a minimum broad shoulders to escape killer trucks, biking to work for most of us is not safe or practical.

Let’s talk specifics. Men love talking about routes. I might not have seen my Dad in a year but the first thing we talk about somehow is the ROUTE I used to get home. It’s a Y chromosome thing. So here goes: from my home near WT Harris and West Sugar Creek, you have three choices to Uptown: A) Tryon, B) Graham and C) Statesville. Of that trio, I’m taking C. I’m guessing Statesville is the best of the bunch. There are great new bike lanes (and sidewalks) from WT Harris to Sunset. Great new bike lanes which no one uses in part I’m guessing because they get you only half way to Uptown. But then you have to hug the shoulder for two and a half miles which take you conveniently past MEDIC. Maybe they’ll just run out of the building and scoop me up. Once you pass over I-85, the four lanes on Statesville resume and the sidewalks pick up, too.

But I’m probably being a whiner. I talked to a real biker at a bike shop yesterday who rides regularly from the University area all the way to South Boulevard and he says he has no problem. He goes old Concord to Tryon (briefly) to Eastway to the Plaza. Sounds like a great route. I love Plaza-Midwood, Elizabeth, what a great ride.

But he commands the road. Me, I’ll be lucky not to be ground into it.