I think this stage comes a very close second in terms of the most horrible bit about falling off your bike. Balance is a wonderful friend but he (or she) is ruthless if you neglect him (or her.) Balance lends a feeling of power and invincibility, but it is a lie. There is a critical point in losing balance, beyond which it will not be regained. Then, you must prepare yourself for the worst. There will be blood. There will be pain. Shame will hover in the shadows.
The airwaves will barely obscure a barrage of swear words and verbal violence waiting to take voice.
This stage happens remarkably quickly and seems somehow to happen outside the realms of normal consciousness. It is, you may be surprisd to read, the least worst stage. It's nasty, but you only really grimace when you look back at it. This stage is the telling factor in what the result will be. Do you protect your head? Were you wearing a helmet? Do you go hands first? Perhaps you twist, or get stuck in the frame of the bike, or seperate from the frame of the bike altogether and hurtle towards the compacted (hardened) tarmac. This is the 'other wordly' stage. It will happen in a flash and you will then be ready for...
By far and away the worst stage. Here begins pain. First, It dawns on you: you just crashed. Oh S***. Then, you realise your leg shouldn't be where it is - caught halfway up the shin in the bicycle frame (I'm being specific for a reason). The momentary gladness you feel that your head is unhurt evaporates like steam on the surface of the sun as the first wave of pain prods you on the hands and says, "welcome to my world"! Then, and I always hate this bit, adrenalin's effect starts to wear off and your stomach joins in with the sick, heady concoction of shock, agony, anger, distress, etc. Now, you carefully (and thinking all the while you have CERTAINLY broken bones) remove your leg from the unyielding metal frame of your stricken bike. Someone always seems to come over at this point. They are always welcome (unless they came to laugh, which has happened to me in the past) and are semi-angelic in their compassion, but you can't - as victim of this crash - be nice. You have pain and distress on your mind. Best you can do is not swear at them (something I once failed to do).
The crash is over. It happened about twenty minutes ago in Colchester Institute car park. I was multi-tasking. I got cocky. I fell. After, I wandered into the library loo and attended to my minor wounds. I expect to survive this trauma. I have no doubt I will fall off again sooner than I'd like. I can only recommend you don't try, with your right hand, to hang your now removed bike helmet by the straps on the left handlebar. It's much harder than you might think.
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