Glenn Kubish

At the Winter Bike Congress in Calgary earlier this month, I said, in a kind of convoluted manner that took six minutes and 40 seconds to spit out...I said, in 20 slides, some of which were painful to relive, some nostalgic...I said, in words I tried to get right in the one shot I had in front of some of the very people who I most wanted to say the word to...I said: thanks. Here's my Pecha Kucha called We Winter Together. This was me. Making a heartfelt point about Russia at last year's Pecha Kucha night in Moscow. I fell in with a stellar band of winter bike riders and storytellers that night. It would take me another month to fully appreciate what I'm doing in this picture. I mean, look! I am lifting my left arm. This was a month later. This was my left arm. My shoulder is fractured and dislocated. I fell off my bike. Like Caesar, I did not beware the ice of March. But I was aware of how beautiful the ride was on the decline before the fall! ...

The Fall My left shoulder throbbed. From the hot pain rose the strangest image. A giant eagle had sunk its giant talons into my left shoulder, and then squeezed until I breathed out, barely controlled, a thin jet of frosty air. I had just fallen off my bike coming down a stretch of riverbank ice blanketed by morning snow. My front wheel slid. I lost control. I hit hard. I was on the ground, part of a debris field. My bike was on its side, its front wheel twisted backwards. The Go Pro handlebar mount was sheared off. The camera was half buried, still rolling. The tiny red light record indicator pulsed. The rear panniers were hanging by single hooks.  These are things I noticed when my shoulder was dislocated. It was so quiet, in the snow, in the trees, under the sky. This is what it looked and sounded like from where I sat, and then didn't. Before I was part of a perfectly lovely morning in the city. Jeff at Sugared & Spiced had opened the shop early for Coffee...