Wham!

Well, it finally happened. After biking accident-free daily for over three years I had my first wipe out.

I'm okay. My cell phone is not:





I got a little scraped up:





Fortunately, I was wearing my helmet or this woulda been a lot worse. It really was no miracle, what happened was just this:

I was on the Rock Creek Park bike trail, rounding a corner as an oncoming bike was rounding the corner in his direction. I gave him a wide berth, and in so doing I hit a big patch of mud (some of which I'm wearing in the photos above) that had oozed onto the trail after all the rain we've been having. As this was on a corner, both wheels just slid out from under me. I went down on my left side. While most of my body made contact with the mud and slid, thus making the scraping minor, my head hit the concrete trail hard. If it weren't for my helmet, I'd be in the hospital or worse for sure. So kiddies, always wear your helmet when you ride!

The oncoming biker stopped and was very apologetic. I told him it wasn't his fault -- it wasn't -- and that I was okay.

As much as I bike I knew that an accident was inevitable. Thank god it was a garden-variety accident. And thankfully the powerful Mach Five was undamaged.