The cleat stayed attached to the pedal.
That was the strange part.
The night before the ride, I had suggested putting the bikes on the car and starting near the George Washington Bridge. That would skip the city miles and leave more room for an interesting route north. I sent a Strava route a little after eight.
The ride made it north. The shoe did not make it back in one piece.
I was turning hard on a descent with my inside leg up when the plastic around the cleat plate broke. My foot came away from the pedal, the bike went down, and I slid. Later that night I explained it more simply: “Tore my shoe off my cleat today and crashed.”
The photos looked like evidence from a very small mechanical investigation. The bottom of the black shoe was scraped white, with the metal mounting plate exposed where the plastic had torn away. The cleat hardware was still locked around the bright green pedal. My elbow and forearm had several red scrapes, plus one darker spot where I hit hardest.
An hour earlier, the camera roll had a quiet road and a for-rent sign. Then it had my bike on a subway escalator in Washington Heights. The train ride home was not part of the route I had shared.
I guessed that I had loosened the shoe earlier without noticing it. The hard turn finished the job. Nothing in the pre-ride plan had included checking whether the sole might separate around four bolts.
The last three photos were the shoe, the pedal, and my elbow. That was the full crash report.