the birm*

Silliness or saving grace?

So I was on my way to town to see if I could get a replacement mirror for the van (I smashed the right hand side mirror into the side of a cliff on a precarious road above camp a couple of months ago). I needed the exercise and it was a beautiful afternoon, so I hopped on the GT. Coming round a bend, half way down the freshly-leaved-covered camp road, the road felt a bit slippery, so I cut the corner wide, dropping onto the grass.

The next thing I knew my left hand was off the bars and I shoulder and face-planted (well, helmet planted) over the bars into the soft green grass, with the bike on top of me. I moved the bike off me, checked to see if anyone was around (so embarrassing!) and got up. no apparent harm done, just two huge divots taken out of the grass. I looked at the bike: handlebars totally twisted sideways. I jogged the bike back to the “shop” at camp and twisted the handlebars back into place.

I was ready to get back on when I noticed that the front wheel was rubbing on the brake pads. I though it’d bent a spoke, but looking closer I noticed that both brake pads were bent. Odd. I was about to take the wheel off when I noticed that it was moving side to side. Not good. As I reached for the skewer, it was undone. Hum, strange.

An hour later, having changed the pads, the skewer and the front axle (which was bent too), the bike was ready to go again. Evidently by that time it was too late and I was a bit shaken up. Had the wheel been undone B4 I left? Was that what made me crash when I dropped the little ledge?

It hit me the next day that what appeared to be a silly crash was in fact God’s grace that saved my bacon! The first bit of the road to town is a windy downhill with a cliff on one side and a 100m drop on the other. The “railings” on the drop side are about 50cm high, which means that if you hit them on a bike it’s goodnight. Just the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t crashed on the nice grassy spot makes me shudder…