It was one of those crashes that could easily have gone either way. It ended with some scrapes and bruises. It was soooo close to ending with some dental work and probably some collateral facial damage.
I was off Mike's rear wheel as he approached the causeway by the Creative Playthings Bridge. We were returning from happy hour at The Overlook (you get the picture). We were loose and moving at a nice clip approaching the 10" step up onto the causeway. Mike was a fraction of a second late lifting his front wheel up onto step. His front wheel stopped instantaneously, the bike kicked out backward, and Mike catapulted over the handlebars with his face on a perfect trajectory to plant, hard, on the causeway. Somehow he got his forearms in front of his face to break the fall.
On the way home I was thinking of revising the happy hour axiom "one is not enough and three is too many." I was going to revise it down, but then I remembered the 7% on Mike's microbrew can. Maybe my lite beer tastes like cold piss but the 3.5% sure felt about right on the ride home.
It's one of those things that happens occasionally in this sport - just look at the "Notable Crashes" section on this blog. Most of them end OK but occasionally you get one that rattles you a little. It replays in slow motion over and over in your head the next day. You clearly see what could have happened. And next time you ride, you are just a little more focused. That slight pucker factor is actually one of the wonderful things about this sport. It focuses the mind, clears away the distractions. Keeps you "in the zone."
Chris
P.S. We were just 13 days from setting new "days since last crash" record (ironically today is Friday the 13th).
"Safe biking is no accident"
- unknown
Ouch. Now I'm not so sad I missed it... I coulda added to the mess. -MM
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