Ok, it may seem like I’m constantly blithering on about the bliss-out effects of cycling blah, blah, etc, etc ad infinitum but I also concede that it’s not without its occasional mishaps.
Mountainbiking is arguably more hazard-strewn than the routine road commute. There’s mud, rocks, exposed roots and twisty gnarly descents in them thar hills. Plenty to stop you in your tracks, in other words. Having said that, it’s probably a bit more comfy to be wiped outby a malevolent branch in the spokes than it is to be knocked sideways by a people-carrier driven by a reckless, stressed mother late for the school run.
I haven’t written anything about my falls and the minor prangs because I’m fortunate they have been few and far between. I suppose I’ve been properly mountainbiking since 1993/4 – those are the dates inside my mountainbike maintenance manuals (mint condition since I ruined a wheel after getting carried away with a spoke key (it looks nothing like a key either, just to add to the general confusion)).
The kind of incidents I’ve experienced are as nothing compared to a pal who’s still got the scar from being run over by fellow competitors in a road race, my youngest boy, who still has a big dent in his elbow where he refused to wait four hours in A&E after coming off his road bike and knocking off sizeable chunk of flesh, or the acquaintance of mine – the nicest and steadiest of fellows and an experienced cyclist who lost it descending a steep hill and crashed badly, smashing his helmet to smithereens and sustaining brain damage which still affects his short-term memory.
Without the helmet he would have been dead, no question. Without my helmet, I would certainly have been concussed on Sunday. It was only thanks to my helmet that I was able to get up from the ground, dust myself off and cycle home to wash the bleeding lacerations and put ice on the bruises.
It wasn’t as though I was even going very fast. It was one of those tracks where the green path was a overgrown to the extent that the dangling briars had multiplied into a green version of the creepy beaded curtains they have in some dubious backstreet restaurants where they might have one German Shepherd in the backyard and another in the fridge. It looked tricky to negotiate but I thought I’d get my head right down, put a bit of a tickle on, push through the stuff with some velocity and hope the clothing survived intact.
That hope was my last thought before I quite clearly heard my helmet crack. Two cracks actually, just above my left ear, I found later. Bloody nuisance having to buy a new helmet but hey, Giro helmets do the job. They save your head. It was a surprise to find myself lying on my left side in a neat semi-foetal position. After a bit of dusting off, I walked over to extract my bike from the undergrowth a couple of yards back where it was held by a big bastard briar and other greenery wrapped around the handlebar. A couple of days of neck-ache and everything, very very fortunately, is fine.
The last time I hit the deck was entirely my own fault, trying to round a bend too fast on wet grass and slithered off. Fortunately no-one saw. Not like the time, belting down to the post office on damp roads to catch the last post – wearing helmet but couldn’t be bothered to find mitts and put them on and the bike just slid from under me on the slimy damp paving slabs. Naturally I put both hands out to save myself, as you do – and skinned the heels and palms of both hands. Ouch. There was some pain. Actually quite a lot. Removing skin by friction hurts – it’s right up there with labour and paper cuts. But the worst thing was there were people. I mean. I never had much dignity but the remaining shreds were snatched cruelly away that day as passing octogenarians enquired kindly “Oooh that was a nasty tumble. Are you all right my dear? Can I help you up?”
The dramatic prang which knocked all the breath out of me happened while riding an unfamiliar dirt and stone track in Flaxley Woods on the edge of the Forest of Dean. We’d crested a hill in the woods and the chaps went hurtling off, as they do, leaving me to follow and my pal V behind me I didn’t see a problem beyond the branch on the track ahead but I thought I’d hop over that, not seeing the one sticking out that jammed in my front wheel. It was graceful, by all accounts, my somersault over the handlebars but I landed rather heavily on my back with a loud involuntary groan.
I remember lying there looking up at the green leaves with all the breath knocked out of me while V abandoned her bike and ran down to see if I was ok. It’s a horrible moment when you’re first on the scene of an accident in which someone might have fractured their spine so I think she probably felt a lot lot worse than I did. She was mightily relieved when I ignored her exhortations to keep completely still and just got up. Again, the embarrassment factor is a powerful incentive to just get going again.
So the moral of this blog is, if you cycle, Always Wear Your Helmet. Because you’re worth it.
Boadicea's Chariot 
A blog about bruising, Jan, I like your originality.
Agree with you entirely on helmets. When I helped my young ones to cycle helmets were priority No.1, even though they were only doing small laps in the back garden. Only one of them cycles regularly at the moment and I’m a bag of nerves when he’s on the road, helmeted though he is.
Had a nasty experience with a cyclist tonight (yesterday). I was a passenger in a car at about 10PM and we overtook a cyclist. He didn’t have any lights on his bike. Tut, Tut.
Breathtaking stuff, Janh1. A total joy as always.
But, I think I’ve worked out the solution to your problems. The simplest way to avoid accidents on bikes, whether or not you are wearing a helmet, is not to get on the bloody things in the first place. If the Good Lord had meant us to race around, blatting ourselves down suicidally sheer and rough boulder-strewn and treacherous woodland tracks on two wheels, he would not have given us the internal combustion engine, John Loudon McAdam or gravity. Simples.
I’ll be waiting for the Patent Office to open on Monday morning. I reckon I’ll make a fortune.
One thousand and one apologies, Jan. If I may.
JM- Gravity. Grasshopper bows at your absolute brilliance.
Yebbut, nobbut, yebbut, JAN! There are helmets and then there are cyclists’ helmets. No contest! Could you imagine The Stig, for example, or me wearing a cyclist’s helmet?
Sorry. 🙂
OZ
I always watch the Tour de France on telly and note that when they fall off they don’t even cry. 😉
Morning Janus. No they only cry when they lose 🙂
Oh OZ the Stig looks just fine as he is. He wears the Helmet of Mystery. Well, he did until he wrote his book and wanted to do book signings and meet his public. I think there will be another Stig inside the Helmet of Mystery very soon.
Oh furgoodnessake, Mr M. A girl has to have a little excitement in her life. There were a few typos you didn’t pick up, I think but hey, I can live with disappointment too. I gave up “treacherous” when I was about 45 by the way.
Hi JW. Oh some cyclists do let the side down. I’ve lost count of those who go through red lights as though they don’t apply to them. I wait. Like a good girl. Someone’s got to set an example! Good policy on your part. I love seeing tiddlers on little bikes wearing helmets – they look so cute and it’s laying down a good habit for the future 🙂
Yes, quite wonderful!
My son thought he was immortal too.
Countless incidents to one of his legs in rugby and skiing.
And then an appointment with death in the shape of an exposure to heavy metals.
Bingo, 9 months later a death sentence.
Grow up.
I have never heard such idiocy in my life, quite sick making.
Why are you trying to throw your life away?
Can’t you find anything more useful to do with your life than career around on a bicycle?
For Christ’s sakes you are nearly middle aged if not already and behaving like some idiot brat.
Beyond, as they put it in Wales.
It makes me sick to my guts to hear your stupidity.
CO, is it ordinary distemper today, or wha’?
Walking is the healthiest means of exercise/locomotion. If you are in a hurry, catch a train/bus or buy a car.
Helmets are compulsory here in Oz – no helmet – no cycle!
Personally, I’ve seen enough mud, brambles, stinging plants and things that slime you or bite you in the most sensitive places in my lifetime. Wafting along in climate conditioned comfort, dry, clean and gently perfumed with a fine gentleman’s aftershave, with gentle background music from the eight-speaker music system to match my moos is definitely more my style.
Heh, heh 🙂
As a matter of interest, do you agree with that policy or do you see it as an intrusion on the freedom of the individual? Does the same rule apply to riding horses? If you do think it is justified, is there anywhere else where you would extend such safety measures? Helmets in cars for example. Racing drivers wear them, so maybe all drivers and their passengers should wear them too. How about life jackets must be worn when swimming? Where and when does one draw the line. Its interesting the different attitudes towards safety in different parts of the world. Here in South Africa it tends to be pretty laissez faire. Elsewhere in Africa, it is even laissez fairer.
Or laissez unfairer? 🙂
Jan, I have a fair few tales of my own, but usually involving the Cyclomaniac… I have been the rescue team on countless occasions. Helmets save lives, undoubtedly.
Good piece.
And Christina’s rant? Just shows how much she cares.
Sipu
In some ways I see it as an intrusion into the freedom of the individual. I remember the joy of riding pillion on a motor bike as a teenager – no helmet – I loved it. I would never have driven a sports car had I had to wear a crash helmet… I went on the back of my son-in-law’s bike a couple of years ago. I knew I couldn’t escape the helmet – but he insisted that I dressed in a whole pile of ‘protective clobber’ – what a palaver – I wouldn’t bother again!
I’m not sure of the situation now, but when the bicycle helmet law was introduced into Darwin so many people gave up cycling (the heat was unbearable) that the law was modified to allow people not to wear helmets on cycle paths – but for all other occasions (more dangerous?) they had to be worn.
I’m undecided between the freedom of the individual to injure and / or kill him/herself and the cost to society of not wearing safety gear.
The lines now operating in the UK whereby I can not stand on a low stool to take a book from a shelf in the NA need to be rubbed out and redrawn …
In Greece, where I holiday, attempts to enforce helmets for motorcyclists have failed dismally to work.
I am surprised and concerned to hear of the emetic effect of this blog, Christina.
I do hope you feel better very soon. Better out than in. I was trying to make the point that I wear a cycling helmet in order *not* to throw my life away! Yours truly, Idiot Brat. 🙂
Hi Boadicea. That’s OZ and NZ where it’s law, then. The lady I saw cycling sedately in Chelenham the other day, wearing a summer dress and a straw hat (!!) would be breaking the law. Kind of a shame, really to rule out the eccentrics. 🙂
I can understand your desire for comfort, Bravo and my car has all the comfort features too but that’s not really the point. The bike is a blast, for fun, for getting in touch with the kind of feel-good sensations one can’t get any other way. Bearsy has pounced already but I too appreciated the bovine typo 🙂
Hi Pseu. I was sure you and Cyclomaniac would be acutely aware of the risks sans helmet!
Yes Amicus, done properly, walking is the healthiest, safest and cheapest form of exercise – and doesn’t, at this moment in time, require a helmet.
Splendid post, Jan and I’m totally impressed by your sense of adventure and common sense.
I gave up on bikes, and or roller skates many years ago, and switched to horses.
Much more dangerous, but I did wear a hat; well most of the time.
I now boringly risk my life by driving a car, and walking occasionally.
Must be an age thing; don’t even go there; carry on biking! 🙂
Tsk, mustn’t risk life and limb, Jan, just curl up in the armchair and read a good book why don’t you? 😉
The battery died on my electric bike the other week (Yes, I know, what a wimp!), but I went to the shops anyway; ended up sprawled in a heap in the middle of the road with the
bike on top of me, a mangled knee and shopping all over the place. A kind person extracted me from beneath the bike and I went on my way, on foot, whimpering softly. No helmet, silly me, but knee pads would have been good. How is it possible to shred a knee with no damage to trousers?
Keep on doing what you love, Jan. Great Post. 🙂
Morning Araminta! Smiling broadly here at your “common sense” comment. I think opinion is divided on that. 😀
Horse riding is just plain scary. You’re so high up for a start – and horses know when they have an eejit on board. Mine did anyway. I suppose I just didn’t do enough of it.
Poor Bilbs!! ouch. Sorry to hear about your prang and secretly glad it’s not just me doing the occasional splat. Helmet, though, girl, *helmet*! The knee thing is weird. I have a dent in one knee from an incident ascending concrete car park stairs with both hands full of bags of shopping, slipped, landed on one knee (wearing jeans). On inspection at home, shredded, as you describe resulting in life-long scar. Shopping eh? Just as dangerous as cycling really.
….and shopping is much scarier….
Roools of the road:
Beware of potholes filled with water… they may look like a shallow splashy puddle, but are much more dangerous. (“Pseu, could you come and collect Cyclomaniac, he’s a little disorientated and determined to carry on…”)
Take up more room that you need to allow swerve room (White van man slaps buttock in passing)
Avoid loose gravel downhill at speed.(Necessitates wife undertaking a relay of limping man and bike while attempting to supervise children, and until pub is reached for analgesic effects on man while car is collected)
Pseu, look here.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article639462.ece/Pothole-takes-out-half-of-MTN-cycling-team
Thanks Sipu, nasty accident. Cyclomaniaic’s tumble took out three others as well, but luckily no ones broken, just bikes. The pot hole wasn’t quite that deep, but pretty foul.
Janus, it’s the bills that are scary. 🙂
Ah Pseu, you know the drill, obviously. Love the “he’s a little disorientated and determined to carry on….”
Whose buttock? Yours or cyclomaniacs? Too tempting, obviously!! I’d take that as a compliment rather than an assault, I think, despite what I just said about personal space in a comment to Amicus. I am a woman demonstrating how fickle we can be.
Oh loose gravel is horrible, horrible. But Sipu – that pot-hole is just shocking. Awful accident – someone could have died. Terrible negligence not cordoning that off.
This thread is putting me off cycling (doesn’t take much! :). If I wish to risk life and limb I’d also rather do it on horseback.
Just make sure all the nails are in the shoe….