After pride...

...comes a fall. On Day 3, the plan was to ride down Fraser again, this time heading by a different route to the bottom of Genting. Thence, homewards on the bus. Of course, I had to repeat the previous day's downhill dose. This time though I pushed just a little too hard. Descending the one-way road towards the Gap, I didn't slow down enough coming into a right turn. I wish there had been a video camera there as I'm sure it would have been the funniest capture ever.

There I was, going just a little too fast to try to make the turn and wondering what to do. The hill rose up on the left of the road and falling away towards the right. Rocky Chris was the next fastest rider and he was at least 100 metres behind me, so I didn't need to worry about bringing him down with me as well. In those two or three seconds, I assessed me options:

1. Force the bike into the turn, hit the deck on my right and slide towards the wall feet first.
2. Slow down as much as possible, brace myself for impact and just hit the wall head-on.
3. Slow down but fall leftwards against the wall hitting it with my left shoulder.

So what did I do?

In the event, the reason a video would have been hilarious is that, any onlooker would have seen a cartoon-like sequence of events. Chap comes rolling downhill and simply goes splat against the wall. Cue laugh-track. So, yes, no miserable shrieking before the crash, a slight wheelie and onward straight into the wall. I am happy to report to the sentimentalists among us that the bicycle remains intact. I am also happy to report to the environmentalists among us that the wall too remains intact. The only thing that didn't remain intact was my pride. And yes, not a scratch on me. Cursing myself for my stupidity, I got up, Chris helped me pull my right shifter back into place and on we went.

In the end, an anti-climax. Going over some gravel, a tiny pebble sneaked into my rear tyre and damaged both tube and tyre. Not being able to repair the tyre, I decided to clamber into the bus. End of an enjoyable and eventful weekend!