Phillip Barron
The Herald-Sun
January 11, 2005 9:09 am
DURHAM — All cyclists have stories about accidents: the first time, the worst time, the most recent time. Falling, in my opinion, is just part of cycling. For the most part, especially if you’re wearing your helmet, falling isn’t so bad. It gives you the chance to get back up.
On the way to work a few months ago, a familiar corner of the last 50 yards of my commute revealed itself as unfamiliar. Rounding the corner, I tried to keep as much speed as possible for the climb up the steep hill on the other side. The corner, a sharp right turn, is the only thing standing between me and the momentum I need to coast up at least a quarter of the hill. My 9-mile commute is not hard, but by the time I get to this hill, my feet are heavy.
Seeing how fast I can take the corner is one of the risks I take to challenge myself on my way to work. Every morning I go a little faster, lean the bike a little more, and make myself a little more vulnerable. But, this morning, I rode a little too fast or leaned a little too far. It was tropical storm season, and the suddenly clear blue sky belied the fact that it had rained persistently for three days. Although the roads were dry, under the canopy of the trees the trail was still wet.
Wet pavement, hit at an angle and with enough speed, can be slick as ice. It doesn’t take much mud, wet grass, or algae slime to pull a wheel out from under you. Especially if you’re braking into the turn. I should have finished braking before the turn, so that I could accelerate through it. But, my confidence was off and I was still braking while turning. Probably because I was afraid of falling.
The front tire slipped first. The bottom of the front wheel kicked out and to the left. The rest of the bike, not prepared to follow the front wheel’s new direction and keep a 200-pound rider on top, laid down on its right side. By the time the rear wheel was sliding, the handlebars hit the path, bounced, and skidded down the hill. The bike came to a stop about 15 feet away from where the front tire slipped. With a smoothly worn bar-end, the bike faired better than I.
I slid across the pavement on it. The sliding didn’t hurt, even though skin was tearing. It hurt only afterward. While you’re falling and sliding on pavement, it’s almost like it’s not happening to you. You don’t have time to think or feel.
When I stood up, I began to feel. Yeah, my shoulder hurt from the jarring impact, but it didn’t dislocate. Yeah, my hip hurt from slamming into pavement, but I had no trouble walking. Yeah, I was bleeding from my elbow, but not badly considering what just happened.
What I felt most was relief. Relief that I was OK; that my fears didn’t come true. Later, I was even glad that I had fallen. I felt like I had accomplished something important.
As we age, we grow more fragile. We lose the adept strength, flexibility, and elasticity of our childhood physiques. But our habits accelerate the biological inevitability of aging. We are less active as adults than we are as children. We value play less; we value physical activity less. We surround ourselves with safety features like airbags, surge protectors, carbon monoxide detectors and surveillance cameras. For many of us if we play, we tend to play it safe.
This is something to think about. We’re not just growing more fragile as we grow older, we’re also growing more conservative. Some of us take fewer risks because we see risk as a health care liability or a threat to job security.
What are we afraid of? Maybe we’re afraid of falling because we don’t fall often enough. We fear falling when we forget that falling is about healing, about recovering, about learning.
If we fell more, we’d be a little bruised, maybe a little bloody, a little more sore. But, we’d be better prepared for what comes next. Where we fall and bounce back, where we risk and succeed, where we work through fear, that’s where we find meaning in life.