I hope all my crashes are like this one: only painful to my
ego and able to remain upright. I blame it on a woodpecker, yeah… it was the
woodpecker’s fault. I was cruising along a portion of the trail along the river
that has a chainlink fence on one side. I heard the telltale knocking of a downy
or hairy woodpecker very close to me on the river side of the trail and looked
over to see her clinging to the underside of a dead tree branch. Before I knew
it, I’d drifted into the fence my handlebar caught one of the links and The
Lilac Monster stopped dead. I didn't hit the ground, thankfully… I don’t need
any falls! I could feel the stares of
the workers on the other side of the fence who stopped unloading a truck to
look at the fool not paying attention to where she’s going. I laughed to let them know I wasn't injured and went quickly on my way.
My last two falls while riding (which is a different category from falls while dismounting) have been in fences, just like you describe. The most recent is on the new Sandcastle trail segment, I let the bike/handlebar drift into the chainlink fence. The previous was on the Montour Trail, north of Venice/Route50, where they've rebuilt the trail and placed a fence at the dropoff and I did the same thing - stopped paying attention to the outside world, I got lost in my internal dialogue and I put my handlebar into the chain link fence. I thought I'd mention, you're not the only one doing this! Cheers, V.
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