So a little more on what happened yesterday morning:
A group of six BG donned full finger gloves and, seeing the great weather (cold, but clear and zero wind), set out for what was planned to be an Old Freeway to the Lofty Summit, then Ashton, Cherryville and down Montacute for coffee somewhere around Newton.
Bollards, then Lofty was knocked off at a steady pace, and the group posed for this work of art at the summit...
In retrospect, this should have been seen as a portent of doom, as several years ago, about ten minutes after about 15 of us posed at Outer Harbour in our matching kit, we had the infamous Macolino Stackolino where Aldo and Alf went down with most unfortunate consequences for Alf.
Back to yesterday, after departing the summit, we headed down Mt Lofty Summit Road, to Greenhill Road and then onto Woods Hill Road. About 1.2 kilometres from the Greenhill Road intersection, at one of those innocuous right handers, Mike T was leading out Brian and Steve B.
It would appear that Mike lost traction on either some gravel or a patched longitudinal crack near the apex and went down in the classic front wheel 'low side'. Whilst Mike was sliding along the gravel, it appears that Brian went straight, front wheel first, into Mike's left thigh. Steve B reports a fairly graceful cartwheel, unfortunately ending with a very substantial deceleration.
Steve just managed to miss being third man down. Phil P arrived about 15 seconds later followed by Chris W and myself about 10 seconds after that.
A very helpful motorist who was between Phil and Chris also stopped to assist.
Mike has lost a fair amount of bark, and, on his left thigh now sports a monumental bruise bifurcated by what appears to be the tread pattern of a GP4000. He'll live to fight another day, however his bike is much the worse for wear.
Brian's frame, on first inspection, doesn't show any damage. His rims are another storey, and for the moment we will call it a 1-all draw between rim and Tilley thigh. Seriously though, after seeing the bruise, had it been any thigh other than Mike's, we might have been adding a broken femur to the mix.
Mike reported, on inspecting Brian's bike this morning, finding a small piece of fabric embedded in the rim. On closer inspection, it proved to be a piece of Mike's knicks:
Oh dear...
Seriously though, whilst we can make light, these events are never fun, and, as Aldo said yesterday, we all wish Brian, in particular, and Mike a speedy recovery.
MR
