First, a disclaimer – my crash was a slow-motion comedy one. I wasn’t “sending it” over jumps or doing anything that could remotely be classed as “cool”. I was hanging on.
I’d been riding with some friends (all much better than me) in the Forest of Dean. The woods were chaos, people milling in the fire road then peeling off onto the surrounding trails. It had been raining pretty much non-stop until Sunday’s glorious blue skies, and the ribbons of banked trails were slippery, and caked in mud. Riding new trails in these conditions, while trying to keep up with friends (and battling the inner monologue telling you that you’re “just not in the mood”) is a bit of a recipe for disaster.
I was reading the trail too close to my front wheel, not looking ahead, or bracing for what was to come. Then my mind switched off – I noticed a drop too late, and instead of stopping, I simply careened over the edge, falling “like a sack of potatoes.” (A “rag doll” was also used to describe my fall.)
From the Welsh-English borderlands, Meg’s first taste of cycling was downhill – she’s now learning to love the up, and swapping her full-sus for gravel (for the most part!). She is slowly embarking on a road riding journey.
I ended up going over the bars, and landing on my shoulder, neck and head, my body crumpling over the top of me. I rolled over and – most surprising to me – did a little burp and got up, more embarrassed at my guttural scream than the fall itself.
There were factors that let me to that moment. Part of why I love mountain biking is because it’s a battle with your mind, most of all. But as soon as that little voice inside your head pipes up with the first, “I’m not feeling this”, then it is (in my case, at least), game over. There is only so much inner-monologue-coaxing I can do to turn things around.
My friend Chris asked me to lift my arm above my head – no breaks. He said when the three of them clocked what was about to happen, that our friend Archie let out a quiet “oh no.” Chris, a dad to a five-year-old, knew not to react before assessing the damage first. His calm response led not to tears (as usually happen when I’m shocked and slightly in pain) but to that big, grin in the photo above.
I pretty much tapped out after that. I was just a little sore, still a little shell-shocked (maybe I should have cried, actually?) and so I left them to do a few more runs, and headed to the coffee shop. I felt like a bit of a legend, in all honesty. And a little relieved – I knew a crash was coming, and part of me was relieved it had. In five years of riding, this was the first that has given me any form of real damage – albeit temporary.
But in mountain biking, unlike in road where the threat of injury is most likely caused by other road users, the odds of self-inflicted injury are strong. When I’m riding in the woods, I’m negotiating rocks and roots and changing trail conditions – and this isn’t just a hazard of the kind of riding we do, it’s part of why we do it. To challenge ourselves, to keep on progressing and building our skills.
So, injury is not just a possibility, it is a likelihood. After I crashed, and stood up, giddy, (another) Chris we were riding with said that he once fell off his bike whilst riding trails he built himself. Miles from home, the adrenaline managed to float him home, one leg thrown over the bike like a kind of unwieldy crutch. It was only when he got through the back door that the adrenaline started to wear off, and his daughter caught a glimpse of him: “Mum! Dad’s fallen off his bike!”
Being with friends in the woods after a crash made a scary situation, feel safe. After I rolled down to the café, Chris joined me, checking in. After we all went our separate ways, he checked in again: “last obligatory head injury check!” Concussion is something to be taken seriously.
My crash wasn’t anything spectacular. It was the result of a lack of commitment, the legacy of a morning of poor riding and the slow investigation of a trail we kind of knew we shouldn’t be riding, but the fact that I hadn’t ever really crashed before had become a weight around my neck. Just the day before, I had slapped my head after saying I’d never crashed, “touch wood!” Fate was tempted and she delivered.
With the a bit of chivvying along from my friends, we climbed back up to the trail head and rolled down some flowy single-track. My bones ached, my muscles were sore, but the crisp early-evening air washed around me, and hung to the inside of my cheeks in that wonderful wintery way it does. It felt good to be back in the saddle, however sore. Now, for a bath and some R&R.
