i’ve always had a funny reaction to fear. sometimes i’ll ignore it and fire on with my intention 100 miles an hour regardless. this is a story in which i did the opposite, a time in which i decided to do absolutely nothing at all.
it was a warm beautiful day in Scotland. i have always thought that they were heaven sent because there are so few of them. i had been invited on the a family holiday of a friend, which might have been a polite offer. i took it; i miss my family who live down south and therefore will happily attach myself to that of someone else. so, on this day sent from the skies my friend and i decided to head out on bikes that didn’t really fit us to have a picnic. we wound our way through the countryside lanes and into the gravel-pathed woods finding a viewpoint raised to the treetops where we devoured our sandwiches. the whole day had felt like returning to my 9-year-old self, a lucky time in which i had little to concern me (apart from making sure that my mother didn't make me cheese and cucumber sandwiches as the latter soggied the bread).
i don’t think anyone that, once you have been through the embarrassment and have come out the other side, has seen the Sound of music doesn’t, as least sometimes, associate riding a bike with the scene from the film. a terrible rendition of the soundtrack ensues comprising of 5 lines per song, as my poor memory won’t allow for anymore. should the correct key be found it could be nothing more than chance. all this embellishment is simply to say that i remember the day with such fondness, up until the final leg of the
journey home, the trip had been a dream.
the way home had us weave in and out of the trees whooping and cheering on the downhill. until we got to a spot which both weaved and declined.
perhaps this is a good time to mention that i have a bike that i ride everywhere. my pride and joy is a vintage Dawes, one that elicits youthful stories from older generations. it is red with gold tapping (i cant stand the tendency to match the shit out of everything that persuades most cyclists) and thin tyres best suited to road riding and speed for those that are constantly racing the clock. it is this bike that i am familiar with.
the bike i was riding on this particular sunny day resembled my Dawes only in so far as it had two wheels. aside from this, everything that could be different was, down to the size of the tyres. yet I was so used to my aerodynamic dawes that it was the latter i imagined i was riding. this became problematic the moment i hit a gravel, downhill bend. you see the bike i was riding was perfectly capable of managing the rough ground, the wider tyres facilitating greater stability. however, in my head my dawes was ill-equipped for such terrain. in a split second i had managed to foresee attempting a turn in which my bike slid to the right as i turned into the left hand corner, sending my sprawling, taking off several layers of skin and embedding small stones into my side.
fear gripped me.
this time i didn’t even try to override it. i did nothing.
my friend who was riding behind me got to see the whole show and, at the end of it, managed to battle through tears of hilarity to ask me if I was ok. in ignoring the bend and heading straight on i had tested my luck. in this area trees had actually been planted in order to stop the constant movement of the sands. so once i had left the path, my front wheel had hit sand and become wedged. this abrupt stop had only hindered the motion of my bike, i was completely unprepared for the consequences for the rest of me. my momentum carried me over my bike, backside first, the only explanation i can guess at is that my hands were clenched tight to the handlebars. up and over i went. i might have been able to style it out with my first ever flip, if it weren’t for the tree in my way. there was a slow motion feel to it as i rose, arse over tit, slammed into the tree and slid down to land headfirst onto the ground below.
startled, it took me a couple of seconds to pull myself upright, to see my friend in a folded in a heap on the floor somewhere between crying and laughing.
miraculously (and devastatingly) i did not have a single scratch to show for my collision with nature.
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