Rain, Railway Tracks and Road Riding

Mike Strain and I set out on our three hour ride yesterday in the rain. It had been raining most of the weekend and the previous couple days so conditions were pretty slick. About five minutes into the ride we approached some railway tracks, which are everywhere in Langley, so it's kind of a pain to get off the bike, even though the signs tell you to. I started to slow down, and a I remember thinking; this may not be a good idea! Too late. I merely skidded on the first set of tracks and fortunately slowed even more because on the second set my bike went out from under me and I embraced the pavement. I looked behind me and was surprised to see Mike going down at the exact same time (if synchronized bike wipe outs was an olympic sport we would be gold medalists). Unfortunately he was going much faster. He smacked his head (thank goodness for helmets), bruised his hip pretty bad, and was bleeding. His handle bars were all out of sync. But being the tough (or stupid) guy that he is we took a five minute break to regear (no pun intended) and were off.

So let that be fair warning to all of you. If you happen to wipe out on slick rail way tracks, make sure you take at least five minutes to recompose yourself before continuing on!