Grouch Marx famously said he’d never join a club that would have him as a member, and it was my strong intention to never join this one. But yesterday afternoon I made a bad decision that left me joining the very large number of cyclists in Albuquerque’s informal El Pueblo Train Track Crash Club:

My Club membership dues were “strawberries,” abrasions, lacerations, and cuts over the already ugly legs you see above, arms, and hands. Definitely cheaper than the serious injury dues paid by many other cyclists over the years, as we’ll get into shortly. But first, “What is this Club” you ask?

Six years ago your humble blogger brought up and received a whole bunch of injury horror stories from folks who had crashed trying to cross the stupid &$%^#@ angled *&^%$&* train tracks on El Pueblo just south of Paseo del Norte between Journal Center and the North Diversion Channel:

Here’s a bullet list of findings from that research back in 2019:

• Oldest Incident: 1994
• Latest Incident: October 18, 2018
• Injuries beyond “road rash”
  • 3 fractured wrists
  • 1 severely broken thumb requiring pins (we have x-rays of these long, long pins, but will spare you)
  • 1 broken pelvis
  • 1 case of Traumatic Brain Injury
  • At least 3 concussions
  • 1 shoulder injury
  • Several cases of bicycle damage
  • More photos illustrating injuries than you ever want to see
• Pending court cases in response: 1 that we know about
• Previous legal settlements: 1 that we know about
• Common Element in 3 crashes: Victims were riding to the Balloon Fiesta, having never ridden El Pueblo before
• Number of 311/911 calls in response: Fewer than you would think. More than one case of broken bones was reported in which the victim was just driven to urgent care by a relative.
• Memorial Quotes: 23 or 100%, including the following from different victims:
  • “Completely destroyed my helmet”
  • “The helmet most likely saved my life.”
  • An ambulance attendant told the victim’s uncle that the nephew’s crash was, “third in a string of bike accidents that morning.” (Balloon Fiesta)
  • Took bike to Cycle Cave to get fixed and was told “they get about two wrecks a week from that crossing.”
  • And more than one statement that: “I have never ridden over those tracks again!”

So in a terrific case of those ignoring history being doomed to repeat it, especially those dumb enough to actually write the goddamn history, your humble blogger rode El Pueblo yesterday after some errands in the cycling hellscape that is Journal Center and thereabouts. Like everybody else, I try to avoid El Pueblo, but occasionally ride it on a leisurely Sunday morning with just about zero traffic.

Traffic was way the hell above zero yesterday afternoon at 4:00. A steady stream of rather fast moving “I’ve had a shitty day at work and I have to get home right this fucking second” drivers, such that I could not safely perform the little veer one has to do to approach the angled tracks at a safe angle. I had to come at them pretty much straight on.

Yes, I should have just off the bike. Yes, I wrote a series of blog posts about how dangerous these crossings are. Mea fucking culpa.

The upshot is that my Club membership card must already be in the mail and I can still type this morning, lucky to not be injured anywhere near as badly as many on the bulleted list of horror stories above.

Think I’ll never be riding El Pueblo again. I’m dumb, very dumb, but maybe not that dumb. That jury is still out, I suppose.