C
Chris Malcolm
Guest
[email protected] wrote:
> What about all of you?
About 45 years ago an athletic Australian girl and I hired two heavy
old sit-up-and-beg bikes from a hotel we were working in as temporary
summer staff to do a bit of mountain biking on our day off. She was
bigger and stronger and I had a hard time keeping up. On our downhill
return a narrow path ran down one side of a steep narrow gorge and did
a quick switch over a bridge at the narrowest point to the other
side. I was leaving braking for the bridge as late as possible. Not
having the strength to catch this Amazon I planned to catch her up
with masculine courage and skill!
By the time I started braking for the bridge the path had turned into
gravel so I changed my strategy from heavy braking to lighter braking
and choosing the best high speed line across the bridge. At worst I
would skid and lay it down in too steep a turn and hit the side of the
bridge in a sliding broadside.
But as I started to lean the bike over to take the turn into the
bridge the bike simply kept leaning further over without turning. Too
late I realised than under the gravel my front wheel was running in a
cart wheel rut. I yanked it out of the rut, but too late to turn. I
hit the side of the bridge almost straight on. The wall was low, and I
ran the risk of being tipped over it, to minimise which I moved my
weight back and low, with straight arms braced for the impact.
The front wheel hit the side of the bridge and the back wheel started
to rise up into the air. It seemed to rise up in very slow motion. I
had plenty of time as the back wheel slowly rose to observe myself
being tipped up until my head was past the the parapet and I could see
vertically down to the tiny silver thread of the stream snaking
through the boulder strewn bed of the gorge hundreds of feet below.
The interesting question was whether the rest of me was going to
follow my head over the parapet and down into the gorge, and whether I
could think of how to grab onto the wall securely before it was too
late. I couldn't see anything grabbable. I wondered if I could think
of some way of violently throwing the bike down the gorge and throwing
me by reaction back onto the bridge, but I couldn't think of a
plausible way of doing that either. I decided I would simply have to
fall down with the bike, and try to throw it violently down at the
last minute before impact. Fortunately after hanging motionless for a
long time at the tipping point the bike decided to fall slowly back
down and deposited me safely on the ground.
The front wheel was badly buckled and jammed right back onto the chain
wheel. Using rocks, feet, and an old fence post, we managed to batter
and lever the front wheel into just about revolvable shape, and I
cycled back very slowly, with a bruised bum and a big lurch and wobble
every wheel revolution. Despite the lurch and wobble, cycling was a
bit less painful than walking.
This confirmed the dim opinion the athletic antipodean goddess had of
the feebleness and stupidity of British young men in general, and me
in particular.
--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
> What about all of you?
About 45 years ago an athletic Australian girl and I hired two heavy
old sit-up-and-beg bikes from a hotel we were working in as temporary
summer staff to do a bit of mountain biking on our day off. She was
bigger and stronger and I had a hard time keeping up. On our downhill
return a narrow path ran down one side of a steep narrow gorge and did
a quick switch over a bridge at the narrowest point to the other
side. I was leaving braking for the bridge as late as possible. Not
having the strength to catch this Amazon I planned to catch her up
with masculine courage and skill!
By the time I started braking for the bridge the path had turned into
gravel so I changed my strategy from heavy braking to lighter braking
and choosing the best high speed line across the bridge. At worst I
would skid and lay it down in too steep a turn and hit the side of the
bridge in a sliding broadside.
But as I started to lean the bike over to take the turn into the
bridge the bike simply kept leaning further over without turning. Too
late I realised than under the gravel my front wheel was running in a
cart wheel rut. I yanked it out of the rut, but too late to turn. I
hit the side of the bridge almost straight on. The wall was low, and I
ran the risk of being tipped over it, to minimise which I moved my
weight back and low, with straight arms braced for the impact.
The front wheel hit the side of the bridge and the back wheel started
to rise up into the air. It seemed to rise up in very slow motion. I
had plenty of time as the back wheel slowly rose to observe myself
being tipped up until my head was past the the parapet and I could see
vertically down to the tiny silver thread of the stream snaking
through the boulder strewn bed of the gorge hundreds of feet below.
The interesting question was whether the rest of me was going to
follow my head over the parapet and down into the gorge, and whether I
could think of how to grab onto the wall securely before it was too
late. I couldn't see anything grabbable. I wondered if I could think
of some way of violently throwing the bike down the gorge and throwing
me by reaction back onto the bridge, but I couldn't think of a
plausible way of doing that either. I decided I would simply have to
fall down with the bike, and try to throw it violently down at the
last minute before impact. Fortunately after hanging motionless for a
long time at the tipping point the bike decided to fall slowly back
down and deposited me safely on the ground.
The front wheel was badly buckled and jammed right back onto the chain
wheel. Using rocks, feet, and an old fence post, we managed to batter
and lever the front wheel into just about revolvable shape, and I
cycled back very slowly, with a bruised bum and a big lurch and wobble
every wheel revolution. Despite the lurch and wobble, cycling was a
bit less painful than walking.
This confirmed the dim opinion the athletic antipodean goddess had of
the feebleness and stupidity of British young men in general, and me
in particular.
--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]