Ah well.  It just had to happen sooner or later.  After an uneventful two and a half months back in a saddle, I took a tumble yesterday while on the MTB.  I haven’t hit the deck quite as spectacularly ever in my cycling career, but if I’m entirely honest that’s probably because I’ve never  really pushed  it enough to have it happen.  Let’s face it, I’ve not exactly been Evel Knievel when it came to derring do on the MTB. No, rows of parked buses were always quite safe from my attentions.  Even the juddering emergency stops I’ve had to effect on the cycle tracks because of dozy pedestrians/ dogs/dozy pedestrians with dogs – delete as appropriate, have never resulted in anything other than a minor hop and skip as I hastily reclaimed my balance.  I’ve put the bike down a couple of times but always remained upright myself.  This was an entirely new experience yesterday, and one which, hopefully, I won’t be repeating in too much of a hurry.  Again, to be honest it was maybe a bit daft going out in the rain.  But it wasn’t that heavy and I was on a mountain bike for goodness sake.  (Wouldn’t have gone out on the road bike in it though)   I had negotiated round the canal path at Burrs Country Park and was in transit along a flagstone path to another part of the riverside track.  I came over a bridge and had to make a sharpish right turn. A combination of the wet flagstones, leaves and the angle the bike was at as I turned all conspired to make the rear wheel just slide from under me. Right down – land on right knee, elbow and butt.  It happened so quickly I didn’t have time to panic or do anything in fact. This was possibly a good thing as I suspect I’d have stuck out a hand and ended up with a broken wrist if I had.  On the negative side – the bike is a bit clanky and I’ll need to investigate why. Additionally, it of course happened on the only bit of the path where I could be seen (typical).   On the plus side, my feet came out the pedals without any bother (I don’t actually remember making any release movement so it must have happened automatically).  And of course, equally on the plus side,  I can say with all integrity and honesty that I do now know my arse from my elbow – my elbow hurts more just now!  Joking apart, maybe I was a bit lucky this time, but it has taken the fear of falling away now that it has happened.  I had a horse-riding pal who once said he was getting more and more anxious every time he went riding because he hadn’t had a fall in 20 years, which meant the likelihood of having one was getting greater all the time.  Not sure if that’s statistically accurate but it sounds about right to me.  So my completer arser was maybe a good thing after all.  I’ll be out tomorrow if it’s at all decent. Not on the MTB though!