Girona“I love the bicycle. When I pedal I escape from everything. I feel different: it’s another world, another life,” emphasizes Mònica Coma (Banyoles, 1975). On the television at home, in Sant Julià de Ramis (Girona), the Vuelta a España. Since he cannot ride a bike, he quenches his thirst by watching cycling. The smile darkens: last Monday she went on a 100 kilometer ride and was hit by a car 500 meters from home. “Monday, August 22,” he emphasizes, his arm in a sling and his knee bandaged. “The date has been set,” he remarks. He still has trouble sleeping.
At the penultimate bend before reaching home, of more than 90 degrees, she was hit by a car driving in the opposite direction. “He touched my handlebars and my arm. I lost my balance and fell to the ground, in the other lane,” recalls Coma, who is part of the Edibikes team in Figueres. “I was lucky there wasn’t a fast car coming, because it would have met me in the middle. I have four or five burns and a broken collarbone. But if a car comes by or I fall on the pavement, I don’t know if now it would be here,” he adds crudely. “He had to see me, by the nose,” he says. take a breath And she continues to draw the scene: “I don’t know if I was on the ground for a long time. I don’t remember. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I was stunned. My eyes were burning like little stars.” He only remembers blood and a small, white car that got away: “When I turned around there was no one there. Absolutely nothing.” He picked up the dirt bike and walked home.
The car that hit Monica while she was riding her bike was white and small and ran away
“[Pel camí] I cried and suffered more for the bike than for myself. Not because of its value, but because it was given to me by my man. And it has an emotional factor. Then you look at it coldly and say to yourself: “The bike can be fixed, sheet metal and paint, but what about you?” 50,000 things went through my head. He was neither here nor there,” she affirms. She thought a lot about her husband, Francesc, and her two daughters: that morning she had not been able to see either Judit or Lídia. “You always say: “I will see the girls when come back’ or ‘I’ll see my man when I come back’, but on Monday I was close to not coming back. And this is what worries me the most: not being able to say goodbye to you, because burns heal. I’ve seen that it’s important to say hello and goodbye, to kiss,” he emphasizes. “I’ve thought about it a lot since Monday. From now on I might have to start saying hello and goodbye more, in case something happens at least I’ll have the peace of mind that I’ve said goodbye,” admits Coma. During Monday’s outing, they talked about the fatal hit and run in Castellbisbal.
Firmly, he continues linking sentences: “A colleague and I had separated at the roundabout. When I sent him a message saying that I had been hit, I had not yet arrived home. This is what he says: “Hosty, life can change in a matter of seconds: now you’re here and tomorrow you’re gone”. And now I’ve seen it: in the morning he was here and at noon he could have left and never returned.”
The BTT or the ‘gravel’, alternatives to the asphalt
There is also another recurring conversation these days: “Speaking of which, colleagues say that in the end we may have to leave the road and go mountain biking or gravel“. “I will not leave the road for a wretch. I do not. Do I have to leave the bike because a wretch ran me over? No, I won’t. Should I ban my sport and the one that helps me get ahead? No, I won’t. Let them stop taking a car,” he says. In fact, there are days left before getting back on a bike. “This Friday we had a trip planned and I can’t do it. Well, we’ll talk about it. We’ll talk about it. If I look half capable I’ll do it”, he continues. He explains that next summer he wants to go to Italy, to the Dolomites, to chain mountain passes.
Imagining yourself pedaling again is a pain reliever, in a difficult present. On Wednesday, he reported the incident to the police, “but they have already told us that it is very difficult to find who it was.” He can’t stop thinking that the accident happened 500 meters from home and says that it shows that cyclists are vulnerable everywhere: “It didn’t happen on the national highway or in a port, but inside an urbanization. At my house . When we get to the roundabout we always say that we don’t have to suffer because of the cars because we’re already home, but now we’ve seen that’s not the case.” He acknowledges that on his way to and from the hospital, when he passes the point of the collision, he sees himself on the ground. She also can’t stop thinking about the person who hit her and then ran away and says not knowing who it was has made it difficult to get over the hit. “You don’t know if it was a neighbor, or the son-in-law or the son of so-and-so“, he regrets. And he adds: “I would like him to come, ring the doorbell and say: “Look, I’m the person who made you fall. I apologize. I was distracted. I can help you?” If he showed his face I would feel more than satisfied. If he apologizes to me, I will forgive him.”
Coma raises her voice when she talks about the judicial system, irritated. “It’s cheap to kill a cyclist. The judges have to get involved because these people get out of jail at 11 at night. Or after four days. It’s free to kill a cyclist. And there’s no right. There’s no he’s right,” he repeats. Before saying goodbye to see the end of the stage of the Vuelta, he reiterates that he has been lucky: “When you have time to think you say to yourself: “Fuck, I can say that I am here». My colleagues from Rubí are no longer there. These people had their wives, children and grandchildren. They had everything, still a life ahead of them, and this wretch has taken everything from them in a matter of seconds. And they didn’t take everything from me because maybe it wasn’t my time or my day.”
