Crashing in Chiang Mai

There's certain things that stick with me from today's riding. The quiet ting-ting of brake discs cooling as we stopped between runs. The skittering boulders bouncing past you as you skidded down a gulley. Warm wind blowing in my face rolling down the road between runs. And the ground shooting up towards me half way through the last run today down the Bamboo Trail.

I'd gradually sped up over these two days: quicker at the end of Friday than the beginning, and quickest at the end of today, for the first time on a trail I was half familiar with, with slightly frazzled hands unable to haul hard on the brakes all the time, and a small lady on a very heavy downhill bike in front of me on a twisty, not-so-steep trail, which meant if I really pushed it I could almost keep up with her. If it got to anything really big, of course I'd bottle it and slip back, but sitting on her tail was much easier for most of the ride, because she selected good lines and by following her I wouldn't keep ramming into the sides of gullies and falling off. I'm much happier following somebody else down a trail, as that proves it's possible to ride over a rock or down a slope, so things went well for the first half.

Then we hit a rocky section, and just before the end when it all went flat, I hit a rock about the same size as my head, went over the bars, had that split second horror that I was putting my arms straight to brace my fall and break my collar bone, pulled my arms in, and belly flopped onto the ground, where I clanged my chest into a fist sized rock and then got hit in the back of my head by my own bike.

For a few seconds I just lay there, head in agony, too scared to move for fear my neck was broken, and then another five minutes on the floor trying not to weep and wishing I'd been wearing my chest protector on this trip. Then I had to climb back on to my bike and trundle down the hill to the end. I've got a slight purple mark on my left little finger, and unless I bare my chest to all and sundry, there's nothing else to show for it. Not that I'm asking for a neck brace or a plastered ankle, but between this and my earlier crash today (riding too slowly into a rock, falling forward and eating dirt) I'm getting a bit battered.

Still, it's been two good days of riding, and I'm relatively undamaged, which is as much as I can ask for. Plus chucking a bike down a hill for two days does remind me how glorious it can feel to go down a hill at full chat, wind blowing through your helmet. (And a full face helmet, which saved my face this afternoon.) Now that begins to make me wish I'd held onto my 222. But that would have hit me in the back of the head a little bit harder. Perhaps that was a good thing after all.