Capital New York’s political reporter extraordinaire, Azi Paybarah, breaks this remarkable story:

Half of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s face is bruised and purple, and there are stitches over his left eyebrow and a scab across his nose and the back of one of his hands. Silver sustained the injuries while riding a bicycle when he hit a pothole and fell, according to a spokesman for the lower Manhattan Democrat.

“The speaker said to me he feels a lot better than he looks,” spokesman Michael Whyland said.

Despite the injuries, the 35-year-veteran legislator is keeping up with his normal schedule.

This might be a good time to ramp up the campaign to put a price on the East River bridges. The free ride creates a huge incentive for massive trucks and other vehicles to chew up the pavement on the streets of Silver’s Lower Manhattan district. Just sayin’.