Taking the Safe Way

I learned two things this afternoon while riding my bike back from the grocery store:

1. A plastic two-liter soda bottle can survive, intact, a fall from a moving bike.

2. A FedEx truck can stop in time to avoid crushing a plastic two-liter soda bottle that has fallen from a moving bike.



I rode to get groceries, forgetting that I had removed my Nashbar double pannier that loops over the rack and, most importantly, has two lash straps that hold soda bottles tighter than Peter Angelos' wallet at signing day. So I used my bare rack and one piece of bungee that lay fortuitously coiled in the bottom of my other, single pannier, in an effort to portage my pop. (This single pannier, btw, is a Louis Garnier, which, while highly functional, is quickly falling apart on me. The elastic went to pot quickly on the rain cover and then shortly after on the pannier itself. Stay away from this brand. At $80 it was a bad deal.)

Off I went towards home, and a mere 100 yards or so away from Safeway, off went the soda bottle. Cheers to the FedEx guy paying close enough attention to the cyclist in front of him that he noticed and reacted to the pop-goes-the-soda pop. This is one Diet Cherry Pepsi that almost ended up very flat.