Every great love affair has its ups and downs. Little things that go wrong that you get past to keep things moving smoothly. You need to talk things through, compromise, kiss and make up, and move on. I am talking of course about me and my bicycle. It seems the old girl was mad at me for some reason because she decided to buck me right off. I was riding at speed, and all of a sudden I was interviewing the pavement (in depth). Have you ever heard the phrase “wind knocked out of you” well so had I, but I never really knew what it meant until this happened. Seems if you smack your diaphragm muscles hard enough they seize up and you just can’t breath, no matter what you do its just not going to happen. Lets have a recap.

I am have a fine morning, moving quickly, a wonderful winter morning ride. Then on my way up a hill, I stand up for extra speed, this is the point at which my left toe clip snaps off, sending my foot straight down into the road. Due to the fixed gear’ness of my ride (the pedals keep going if the back wheel keeps turning), this caused my bike to propel me up and over the handle bars, with my bike following closely over the back of my head. The next thing I know a new and horrible sensation was growing in my stomach, wait yes, thats horrible pain.

Lucky for me the road was empty, I had the whole thing to myself to display my 1337 crashing skillzors. After rolling around on the ground a bit (you know to get my bearings) I took stock of the injuries. Bruised ribs on the right side, tiny cut on my right hip, small scrape on my right elbow, and a tiny bruise on my right shoulder. All in all a pretty light amount of damage for the amount of ground eating I did. Let this be a lesson to you kids, wear your helmet, and like 10 layers of clothing, because when you crash it will absorb the vast brunt of the force when you try and test the laws of physics (a test I failed by the way).

So now three days later I have a pretty sweet bruise on my side, and it hurts a little to laugh. But other than that I am fine. Thanks to the efforts of a very very nice lady, my bicycle is fine (only a little tear on the grip tape). I am back up on the horse that threw me and have been riding to and from with no trouble. This has in no way put me off of ridding, and if anything was a freak accident that was caused by the breaking of a part of my bicycle (which if we are going to be honest was probably my fault for not checking). I am going to continue to ride for the rest of the winter, and hopefully many years to come. Viva la Bicycle!

Have you ever beefed it hard? If so please share your bicycle horror stories in the comments. Did it put you off riding? Why, why not?