Fell off my bike last night for the first time in about 25 years.
Bimbling along a raised path through a peat bog in the local nature reserve, the path is about four feet wide with a drop off either side. Came up behind a couple walking a dog on a lead, gave a discreet cough to let them know I was there at which point they turned round and reined in the dog to let me pass.
All good so far.
As I rode past them and gave them a nod and said thanks for letting me through, i turned and almost ran over the OTHER dog, which wasn’t on a lead and had shot out of the undergrowth on the bank of the path.
Faced with an instant choice of : Kill the dog, ditch the bike or give it an Evel Kneivel style leap into the bog.
Made the wrong call and ditched the bike. Should have run over the dog.
When I was 17, going over the bars would have resulted in a ninja like tuck and roll with a half twist to land on my feet unharmed.
At 42 and five stone heavier i went down like a sack of tatties and now have two broken ribs for my troubles. Couldn’t talk or breathe for what seemed like an hour 30 seconds then faced with a two mile slog home.
I appreciate that this is not an unusual experience and that pretty much everyone has the occasional off / injury.
The proper weird bit was that when I got back home, my wife’s opening shot as I walked in the door, before I had a chance to say a word, was “Did you fall off your bike?”
“What makes you think that?” I replied, assuming that the pained expression on my face or some other tell tale sign had given the game away. Scraped knees? Grass stains on my elbows perhaps?…. No.
That’s when she freaked me out by telling me that my youngest son, who is 6 , had walked into a room full of visiting relatives about half an hour previous and randomly announced that “Dad’s fallen off his bike” and then walked back out again.
Spooky, no?
