Ok so Terra-firma has a thing for me - the attraction is not mutual, as it unfortunately leaves me somewhat scarred, battered and bruised.
Early Monday morning, still nursing my bruises and cuts from riding at Sun City, I took a nasty tumble on a piece of track that I have done hundreds of times. My wheels caught the ridge in the middle of the road as I was about to turn into the single track and my bike just slid out from under me. This left a nasty painful graze on my leg (as pictured below) that has been a sore point (excuse the pun) this week, totally disrupting my riding plans.
I had to give the Nissan Cullinan Diamond Rush race that I had entered a skip, as I knew with certainty that if I rode the 70km as planned, I would fall exactly on my nice big roastie. Instead I had a short ride with Greg on Saturday morning and dusted off my road bike for Sunday.
Riding on road I thought would be uneventful - how wrong I was. I met up with some old roadie acquittance's at 06:00 at the Keg in Benoni and we headed out on old Pretoria road towards Bapsfontein. The road bike felt good and I was surprisingly averaging 28km/h for the first 35km. Then it happened - there was quite a lip between the tar and the edge of the road and Earl's front wheel slid off and he ploughed into the tarmac. Victor who was behind him, hit him and went over his handle bars connecting his head on the road. I was behind Victor and just managed to avoid the mangle ending up on the other side of the road. Long story short - Victor - hospital - stitches - plenty sore and Earl - roasties - broken bike and pride.
Can't say I am too fond of riding on the road, the cars are hectic and riding behind someone can also have its pitfalls. I was nice to get out and get a decent ride in though - we did 75km (we aimed for 100 but the accident shortened our aspirations), at least I know my road bike is ready to tackle the 94.7 road race next month.
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