"Don't break"
To celebrate the forthcoming nuptials of a friend of mine, I found myself mountain biking around North Yorkshire on Saturday.

Now, with having a car and an office job, I've not been on a bike for several years now, and have done no exercise of note since I did this a couple of years ago, so it's hardly surprising that I wasn't really looking forward to the day.

Having slogged my way along several miles of trail, and fallen into one fairly large bed of nettles into the process, I was not really finding that much of the day would be categorised as "fun" in the lexicon of my brain.

Anyway, tired and a bit saddle sore we arrive at a location in which the chance to engage in more "fun" is before us - the chance to take a jump.

Now, I can see that already you're thinking - what's he doing? The man's mad.

With hindsight, perhaps that's what I should have thought, but I had seen others negotiate the obstacle successfully, and I thought it looked fairly straight forward.

With some final words of advice "whatever you do, don't break" ringing in my ears, I was off.

Down the hill I raced, with a great deal of momentum being generated. I shot up the ramp and into the air.

At which point gravity intervened.

I came down with a bump, albeit still astride the bike.

Unfortunately, not in the way I had imagined.

I landed on my side, with the bike between my legs, and together we slid to a halt on the loose gravel path.

With people running to my aid, I pulled the piece of stone from my knee and slowly stood up, blood seeping from the mess that had previously been my left leg.


- posted by Paul @ 4:47 pm