FiddyP

I like to ride my..

I got given a mountain bike a couple of weeks ago and since I’ve moved to part time work, I’ve been going out every day on it riding around Lancaster. I regularly ride over 10 miles in a session and as Lancaster is a cycle friendly town, there’s loads of different routes to try.

Bring back the 80′s

Today, I had a crash/scrape. I remember being super awesome on my BMX back in the day (early 80′s) where bunny hopping up a kerb was almost genetically inherited knowledge. So much so that it didn’t require a seconds thought.

Now though, much older (and not even that much wiser) I thought it was the same old ‘push down, pull up, back flick’ to get up a kerb. The thing is, back then in the good old 80′s, I never used to travel so frickin fast down a hill, there weren’t 18 gears, only future rocket bikes had front suspension and kerbs were, well, kerb size.

Now.. 18th gear, at least 30 mph, a kerb (uk term for the bit that raises and separates the sidewalk from the asphalt) that would be more appropriately called a frickin plinth and an unqualified belief that I was still a BMX bandit who could bunny hop anything and you’ve got a recipe for a soreness.

Ouch?

I remember, whilst in mid air, thinking that there’s nothing I can do. I remember not feeling regret at trying to bunny hop at speed, I accepted that it was now too late to do anything and I was going to crash and it might hurt a little bit. All this went through my head before I’d even surrendered to gravity and the friction coefficient of concrete.

A scraping sound, an ‘oomph’ as I met the floor and even a roll or two and I was on my back staring at the blue blue sky.

“hmm’, thought I , “it doesn’t hurt”

A crash at that speed, a meeting of pavement at that velocity and it didn’t hurt? I must be either dead already or I’m an undiscovered super hero. I considered what costume I would have and if I had a home planet that I’d been sent away from when I was a small child. That explains why I had that “I must be adopted” feeling growing up.

As it turns out, I’m just a little dramatic (and maybe even slightly concussed) and have good leather riding gloves and a wicked good bike helmet that protected me from the almighty whack my head got.

I got up (slowly) and sat on the convenient boulders on the side of the pavement and gathered my thoughts. I felt a little sick but I figured that must be the landing flat on my stomach and then I started white-ing out, everything went to high contrast and gain and I felt a bit dizzy.

So, I took a picture of my arm and sent it to twitter of course!!

Then I laid back and watched the sky until the dizziness faded and I no longer felt sick.

40 minutes and 5 miles later, I was back home to much ‘oooh!’ and ‘awwww!’ ‘s when everyone in my shop saw my arm.

Get a helmet (and maybe riding gloves)

You hear those adverts on the radio about safety, you see the reports on the news about cyclists whose lives were saved because they wore a helmet and you think, “hmm, whatever”.

It turns out that they were right!! if I hadn’t been wearing my cycle helmet, I would have probably suffered a serious concussion. I whacked my head on the floor when I met it with a serious amount of force. Not only did my helmet save me from possible brain spillage, it prevented me from getting all scratched up and sore for weeks.

My riding gloves (which I only bought to keep my hands clean and prevent blisters from the grips) were destroyed as my hands went out (superman styley) to protect me from the fall and they certainly helped protect my delicate typing hands.

So, all I have is the graze or two on my arm which wouldn’t be there if I’d had elbow pads on but, seriously, there’s a limit to my safety (un)consciousness!