"This was supposed to be the Summer of George, Jerry, The Summer of George!"

Two Saturday's ago I went out on a not unusual ride. It was a beautiful morning, wind at my back and the sun shining. This particular route incorporated a 12 mile stretch of MUP along the Little Miami River in Dayton Oh. I was feeling strong and the tailwind was encouraging my 20mph velocity. I was approaching a couple on their shiny new E-Bikes and called out to them "on your left, coming from behind". They accommodated my command and I proceeded to move to pass them. First, I passed the husband and thanked him and then without any notification and in a split second the wife locked up her brakes and proceeded to jack-knife her very heavy and quick machine. I only had a moment to respond and hyper-quickly swerved left of the lady/bike so as not to kill her/me and I had a clear path to escape when suddenly appeared the largest Canadian goose in the city. There was no where to go except dead center into the belly of that goose and with that collision I lost control of my Aethos and landed on my right side directly on the asphalt. Most of the force of the fall went through my right buttock and hip, resulting in a fracture of the inferior pubic ramus. It is pretty amazing how the inertia moved through my body and resulted in this injury. I also road-rashed my right arm/shoulder and dented my helmet (again life saver).

Some Good Samaritan cyclists stopped to attend to me and two of them helped me climb over a ravine to get to an access road where my wife's son was able to retrieve me and get me to the ER. 7 hours later I was able to go home with my sweet wife after much testing. I have mulled this accident over and over in my head. I often tell people that I ride on the road because the danger is less than on the MUP. The proliferation of E-bikes on these trails has only reinforced my desire to be on them less. I ultimately blame myself for not having a clear vision of what about to occur and perhaps my speed could have been a bit less. I do know that people are riding these very heavy/fast machines and they don't really have control of them.

In this time of recovery, which is quite painful both physically and mentally, I am trying to practice gratitude for all the blessings in life.

Thanks for listening/reading