I hardly ever drink alcohol. A co-worker who left the company a few years ago arrived for a visit this Friday. Many of my colleagues went to the bar after work. Due to a project I am working on I only joined them two hours later where most were a bit drunk. I had some beer, not much and I did not feel drunk or that it had any influence on me.
On my ride back home, I was crossing a junction at a slow cruising speed, my thoughts suddenly drifted away for a fraction of a second and I lost control and crashed. Somehow like a cat, instead of falling over, I threw the bike away and start running. I was left unhurt and was quiet amazed with my unplanned perfect reactions and quick responses. The STI on the left was scratched but nothing else was broken or damaged.
I continued to ride. I felt indestructible and had complete trust in my skills, reactions and control. I then came through a section of road that was a bit wet. Suddenly, my body was skidding at speed on the road surface, left hip and left shoulder used as skates. This was very fast and finished in a bang, where my head hit the wall of a building next to the road. I did not feel any pain, but I sat on my bum shaken and in complete shock. Unlike the first skid, just five minutes earlier, I felt helpless, hopeless and scared. A man run to me and shouted if everything is okay. I said yes, not sure if I was. Then, I stood up, my long sleeve shirt was torn and dirty. Luckily, I was too tired to change to cycling shorts and I was still wearing long beige jeans trousers. A huge area on the left was torn (could have been my skin) dump and dark. I always wear a helmet on a training ride, but on a few occasions I forgot or could not be bother when just commuting. On Friday, I had a helmet and I know I will be now either eating mashed vegetables via a straw - or - smelling flowers from their roots - if I hadn’t had mine on.
At the time I forgot about the beer. No cause and effect inferences were made. But upon reflection, I concluded it was the beer. For the last three years I covered 8,000 miles per year in all conditions, fast corners, descents, races, group rides and not once have I ever fall over. Well, I did once when I tried a new type of pedals and could not disengage when I stopped.
On Saturday I thought that I would never ride again, I was still in shock and a bit depressed (I love riding). But my wife forced me to go for an hour ride. I was very slow and careful, but I felt positive about it again. Fortunately, although I have some pain above my left hip, nothing is broken.
The aim of my post is not to re-iterate the importance of helmets and so on. You all know this. I just wanted to share with you (a collection of virtual people most of which I have never seen) my recent experience. Sure, most people have had similar experiences and much worse. I had worse cases myself – I once broke my left foot and had stitches to connect my eyebrow and eye lid back together, whilst a student was learning to stitch on my right knee. But that was many years ago, and unlike my wife, my mother banned bicycles for about 4 years.
Sorry for wasting your time reading all this and for writing too long post.