OK I fell of my bike a couple of week's ago. Big deal cry baby, get over it; we all fall off at some point. Yeah that's fine, I agree 100%. But I find the whole accident / " well why did he do it in the first place" thing interesting; you know, the way we are expected to deal with pain, or engaging in so-called dangerous activities. On the one hand we are expected to move on, to be discharged by the hospital quickly and get on with life yet on the other there is the time off work, then potentially months of physiotherapy to repair long term damage. Have I moved on, stoped taking the pills and gone out for a spin, or am I still injured and need a wet nurse?
I'm still injured of course, still taking the horse pills to cut the pain, sniff sniff. You see not only did I tear a muscle in my shoulder when I fell off, I also tore up and bruised a whole shit load of other stuff. Bruised ribs, hip, plus all the cuts and grazes you get. And I'm not 16 anymore, things take time to heal. My shoulder hurts but so do my ribs; sneezing is a joy. But still there is no sympathy and neither do I expect any. I fell off being silly. I'm almost 50, I shouldn't be trying, and failing, to manual gaps should I? Mountain biking is for the youths. Get a real hobby man. Perhaps I should, but I don't half enjoy being on my bike. Perhaps the rationale behind the nay'sayers is health and safety, that people shouldn't engage in risk based activities. That if you do then you are an idiot and you deserve to die.
Bollocks isn't it?
The same people who called me an idiot look askew when I tell them my kids were eating nettles the other day. Why can't oldies ride bikes or kids get messy and eat silly stuff? I want to ride my bike like I did when I was a kid; I want my children to get messy and build stupid things in the woods. So on Sunday I'm out with AD again. The pain is still there but I'm not going to wrap myself in cotton wool. Bollocks; I'm duty bound to show by example to my kids that people should at times be twats. Within reason of course.
Personally I quite like the Nordic attitude to it all. We were in Iceland a few years back, on mountain bikes and I asked where the Krafla caldera was exactly? "Oh that's easy; you are standing on it" came the cheery reply. There were no warnings, and other than a bit of steam and a smell of sulphur, no indication that we were on a live volcano. [If you find this hard to believe, then go to Iceland - it's all hot, sulphur smelly ground with steam and water eruptions.] Essentially the Nordic view of life is that if you want to fuck shit up, then it's your shit to fuck up, do feel free my friend. They wouldn't go out of their way to hurt you, but if you went out of the way to hurt yourself, by walking on a volcano for instance, then what the fuck; it's your life man. It was oddly refreshing, if not somewhat worrying. The place is littered with hot spa pools, many of which have been turned into al fresco bathing pools. They were lovely, but again.... In one we were swimming about in, with several other people, not all tourists, when we noticed a small sign stating that sometimes the water can suddenly go to boiling point in an instant.
Anyway, back to cycling / health and safety / being a responsible parent.
Up the revolution! Let's fall off bikes, eat wild berries and make rope swings over water!
But by heck I could do with some pain killers and comfy slippers.
I'm still injured of course, still taking the horse pills to cut the pain, sniff sniff. You see not only did I tear a muscle in my shoulder when I fell off, I also tore up and bruised a whole shit load of other stuff. Bruised ribs, hip, plus all the cuts and grazes you get. And I'm not 16 anymore, things take time to heal. My shoulder hurts but so do my ribs; sneezing is a joy. But still there is no sympathy and neither do I expect any. I fell off being silly. I'm almost 50, I shouldn't be trying, and failing, to manual gaps should I? Mountain biking is for the youths. Get a real hobby man. Perhaps I should, but I don't half enjoy being on my bike. Perhaps the rationale behind the nay'sayers is health and safety, that people shouldn't engage in risk based activities. That if you do then you are an idiot and you deserve to die.
Bollocks isn't it?
The same people who called me an idiot look askew when I tell them my kids were eating nettles the other day. Why can't oldies ride bikes or kids get messy and eat silly stuff? I want to ride my bike like I did when I was a kid; I want my children to get messy and build stupid things in the woods. So on Sunday I'm out with AD again. The pain is still there but I'm not going to wrap myself in cotton wool. Bollocks; I'm duty bound to show by example to my kids that people should at times be twats. Within reason of course.
Personally I quite like the Nordic attitude to it all. We were in Iceland a few years back, on mountain bikes and I asked where the Krafla caldera was exactly? "Oh that's easy; you are standing on it" came the cheery reply. There were no warnings, and other than a bit of steam and a smell of sulphur, no indication that we were on a live volcano. [If you find this hard to believe, then go to Iceland - it's all hot, sulphur smelly ground with steam and water eruptions.] Essentially the Nordic view of life is that if you want to fuck shit up, then it's your shit to fuck up, do feel free my friend. They wouldn't go out of their way to hurt you, but if you went out of the way to hurt yourself, by walking on a volcano for instance, then what the fuck; it's your life man. It was oddly refreshing, if not somewhat worrying. The place is littered with hot spa pools, many of which have been turned into al fresco bathing pools. They were lovely, but again.... In one we were swimming about in, with several other people, not all tourists, when we noticed a small sign stating that sometimes the water can suddenly go to boiling point in an instant.
Anyway, back to cycling / health and safety / being a responsible parent.
Up the revolution! Let's fall off bikes, eat wild berries and make rope swings over water!
But by heck I could do with some pain killers and comfy slippers.
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