These deep winter days, you can count other riders on the fingers of one hand. An old man is ahead of me and I’m coming up on him fast.

I glance over my shoulder preparing to overtake him but at the last moment instinct tells me to slow down instead; his bike wobbles and then he looses balance, tumbling to the ground and breaking his fall with both hands and right shoulder.

I hustle off my bike and hurry over to help him up. He is shocked and disoriented. I sit him by the curb, get his bike off the road and ask if he’s oK. He nods his head. Does he have a cell phone? He doesn’t. I offer to call an ambulance. He thinks for a moment and I take a better look at him: rail thin, in his early or mid 80’s, a heavy winter jacket weighed down by a chain he’s slung over his shoulder. Even though the air is frigid, his white head is uncovered. No gloves on his calloused hands.

In the end, he thanks me but declines further help. I get back on my bike and leave him sitting on the curb, eyes cast down, head lowered, motionless, like a bird with a broken wing.