Al’s knee shortly after meeting a pointy flinty bit at speed

The trail awaits. The trail that led to accident and emergency, three days in hospital and serious medical professionals shaking their heads and conferring in worrying groups. It has almost no technical difficulty, or hidden obstacles waiting to dispatch you first skywards, then painfully groundwards. Just a snake of singletrack shaken out on a flinty hillside, with serial sinuous curves a mere pedal stroke away.

But I can’t ride it. The world has to turn a few more degrees before the time is right. And I’m properly scared.

A little context while we wait. Exactly a month has passed since the front wheel chattered over an unseen root, and my knee blazed a trail through a flinty pathway, neatly slicing it open and depositing all manner of indigenous rocks and shrubbery in the resulting wound. Three weeks passed before flashing trees and perfect singletrack again became part of my personal geography. But it wasn’t the same as before – the vein of confidence dried up and withered, the bike uncomfortable and alien, the ability to turn left ruined by fear guided fingers feathering the brakes. Physically I was OK, but mentally I was still lying on a sun-baked trail staring at a four inch blood-spitting gash that potentially heralded the end of my riding. For ever.

So the time had come to exorcise some demons. One demon in fact – the trail that got me into this sectionable state in the first place. And it’s important that it’s done right because the reward is the happy mental position timed just before the crash. But the price of failure is riding towpaths, excuses and never mainlining the feeling of the trail pixies firing up the adrenalin compressors. Everyone who rides knows the world comes into focus when you’re beyond your personal ragged edge and only by pushing it can you surf the dopamine surge. I wasn’t ready to give that up just yet.

So this demon was going to get ridden all over in exactly the same format as the previous month except with less crashing. Or to be more precise, no crashing. The idea being that an exact homage to that day would override and eradicate the accident and then we can all get on with our lives pretending it never happened. Apart from the physical scars and they’re easy to ignore.

Continuity was key here. The same riding shirt, scars and rips shadowing a perfect template for fast fading bruises. The much-washed shorts bearing the immovable bloody streak, pitted helmet and flint-battered gloves were carefully selected. I slipped the same CD into the changer and motored off to the start point, waiting for the parking spot that a month ago has seen me laughing and confident.

So much else though had changed, the hardtail unused and dusty, the trails soggy, the weather inclement. And of course the body armour – knee and elbow pads – as deemed mandatory by the surgeon who pointedly informed me that a single fall on unprotected limbs could see me leaving the hospital in a wheelchair. I strapped it all on to the bemusement of the denizens of the car park who must’ve assumed I was undertaking some kind of performance art.

Undertaking… Good word, matched my mood.

Finally away and amusingly slightly fitter than last time, I raced up the first climb, muscles screaming for release and lungs battered by too many post-crash Marlboro, but I wasn’t listening. I just needed to get this over with, ride the trail, stay on the bike, problem over. Possibly.

We’re back. The world has turned a little. The trail stretches out in a series of S-bends, each a little more off-camber than the last and the interleaving straights a little steeper. The bottom of the final S held my nemesis – a drifty wheel, stuffing it at stupid velocity, ground and sky swapped places… No point thinking about it, time to go.

One crank, that’s all. Rolling now on the overgrown trail – a cheeky one not much used, a couple of tyres wide and hanging on to the side of the hill – my arms maintain a death grip on the bars as the first off-camber left looms into view. Two claws of fear grab a handful of brake each, giving me no option but to wrench my singletrack weapon round the bend in a parody of smoothness. The trail steepens but the approach remains the same, brake, brake, brake, force the turn, swear. So slowly did I approach the final bend that it held little fear. But I was disgusted with my lack of commitment. This wasn’t making it any better, rather drilling the demon deeper into my soul.

I rode back up muttering to myself, scolding my lack of bravado – the last time, we were riding this trail hard and fast, kicking dust motes into a falling sun at 25mph. Now, even walking pace seems beyond me. I didn’t suddenly become a crap rider overnight, the tyres will grip, the bike will turn, I can do this at pace, it’s all in my head – all this and more I admonished myself before trying again.

And again. And again. Repeat until fade.

Finally after six attempts, the trail gave it up to my ham-fisted attempts and I stumbled through off the brakes at about 70% of my pre-accident speed. But it wasn’t enjoyable, there was no buzz, no satisfaction, no joy, just a gritting of teeth and the stiffening of limbs associated with an unwanted task. Time for plan B.

Before I really knew what was going on, I yomped back to the top for one last go and carefully removed my pads. I couldn’t face a future where riding could only be contemplated if encased in limb-saving plastics. Five years these trails have passed under my wheels and never before have I felt the urge to strap on talent compensators.

Time was precedent – it was 4:14pm, the exact time of the accident. The rain still fell but I no longer noticed, focussed on doing the right thing. Stab the pedal and roll, pick my head up and look ahead, ignore the one thing that hurt and relax the death grip on the bars. Let the bike do what it’s good at and enjoy the ride, braking stems the flow, holding on too tight ruins the angles, just breathe and feel – for God’s Sake, this is hardly difficult.

Well, it was actually. I managed to haul the bike round the first corner but had a proper four-fingered refusal at the second. Stopped dead and staring into space wondering if this was as good as it was going to get. In desperation I stuffed the MP3 player in my ears and turned up the volume to a Spinal Tap 11.

The rain fell harder as I cranked a couple of revolutions and looked beyond the first curve. The bike, unencumbered by my fear, arrowed a non-slippy arc and accelerated towards the next part of the S. This was summarily dispatched and finally the trail started to talk to me through feet and wrists. It was saying, “you’re going to die, boy,” but trust me, this was an improvement. The bike no longer felt like a mobile pain factory waiting to inflict more bloody injury. The nemesis rocked up, baring its teeth with a hidden root and wet grassy apex. But binning it was frankly the preferred option to bottling out once more. We scythed round and so bolshie was I that sufficient stupidity remained to flick a ‘V’ at the root which pitched me off a month before.

Not so much rewarded as relieved, but that’ll do for now. The world rotated a little more and the reverse path was broken as I headed out for a descent back to the car which was fast, a little loose but thankfully free of flinty knee scalpels. This downhill is a steep chute opening out into a natural berm before plunging through a second rooty chute. It’s fast and open, starting with a “feel the force, Luke” blind leap off a muddy hump into the main trail. Oh yes, hello pixies where have you been? Either arm is fine.

It’s a trail I’ve ridden a hundred times, but it felt like the first time. Dropping through close contour lines, trying to maintain a loose grip on the bars and watching for evening walkers, the world flashed by at remembered speeds and finally it felt good. A couple of fast corners ricocheted me into the berm. And then it went bad. The front end scrabbled for grip and the bike/rider combination were buffeted as if in a strong gale. For a nanosecond the fingers of failure made a break for the brakes…

I’ve had it now. Honestly I really have. If it all goes to ratshit, let me die here, build me a cairn, it’s the way I would have wanted to go. I forcefully supplanted ‘fear’ for ‘instinct’ as the body manager instantly weighted the outside pedal, dropped a shoulder into the curve and carved a perfect line back into the chute. Staying off the brakes for the final rooty section, I nearly pinballed a phalanx of innocent dog walkers and their mutts, as we were ejected from the trail at a velocity only matched by my staccato maniacal laughter.

So what did I learn? While no longer scared of falling off, I’m still terrified of hurting myself again. But within the phase space between these two are essentially two options – fun or fear. I chose fun and intend to chant that like a mantra until insufficient body parts are available to back it up.

Accidents happen. It’s not what you do when they do, it’s how you live your riding life afterwards. To paraphrase an old quote: “Riding after stacking is pretty shit, but consider the alternative…”.