So over the last few days I've been thinking, as I usually do, and my thoughts are drawn back to our bike ride we went on last Tuesday when I fell on the trail. I know that in our highlight video we joke about the small cut I got in said fall, but it really did put life and biking into a bit of perspective for me. More specifically, how falling on a bike is very much like failing in life. First, a little back story:
It was dark. The sky was dripping light beads of drizzle that stung my face as we whizzed by. The light shake of my bike as I rode the trail sent vibrations through my entire being. My glasses condensed in the cool night air, and the only things I could see were the beam of light that my trusty Cateye cast in front of me, and the blinking light attached to the back of Travis's bike.
Travis pulled ahead, going down a steepening hill that lead to a paved bike path that we've been on countless times before. For a split second he disappeared from view as I made it to the top of the hill not slowing down. In the distance I heard him call out, "There's ice up ahead!"
His words didn't fully register.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Before I could process what was going on, I felt my bike lose traction and start to fishtail. I knew then that there was no way I was making it out on my bike. Without thinking, I let go of my bike. The rest was a blur. I remember letting out some sort of verbal yell as I went down. I remember tumbling and rolling to a stop. The thoughts that came to my mind were:
Do I feel any sharp pain?
No.
Could I move?
Yes.
Once I was sure I wasn't dead, my body unclenched and I relaxed. I remember laying back, looking through my rain dripped glasses and closing my eyes. I took a sharp, cold, deep breath and let it out slowly. In that moment, a mindset of clarity befell me. As odd as it sounds, I was at peace.
I don't know how long I spent laying there. A minute? 10? Eventually Travis came back and brought me out of my reverie asking if I was okay. I got up slowly and stretched out accessing the damage to my bike. My light lay several feet away on the ground. My body ached. Long story short, I picked myself up and we kept pushing on.
All the rest of the ride home I kept thinking of the fall and how lucky I really was. It could have been so much worse. I was glad for countless things. My gloves for preventing pavement burn. My helmet for protecting my head. One prevailing thought kept coming to mind though. The idea that in life, we as humans fall. Not just physically, but emotionally as well. In everything we do the potential to fail is always there. What matters in life is how we deal with our failures and how we pick ourselves up and keep pushing on.
There was a moment when I was laying on the ground where I would have been fine just laying there. But that wouldn't have changed the reality of the situation. I was on a bike trail miles from home in the middle of the night. In life, it can be so easy to fail and not continue on. But we have to remember (as hard as it can be sometimes) that despite where we're at at any given point, there is always a bigger picture that we might not be seeing at the time.
In the end, we made it home, and all was well. I guess what I'm saying is, when life gets you down (on the trail and off), pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep on riding.
-Ruzzel & Travis
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