They say that you’re not a real biker until you’ve crashed. If that is so, then I must be a real biker now!

Me and motorbike buddy set out for a nice evening ride in the warm sunshine. We came to a small forest road that I haven’t driven before, it was partly soft sand so I tried to take it carefully. Just when I thought that it got better, the road curved left. I decelarated to the curve like I always do, but unfortunately the curve was sharper than I anticipated, it was downhill and it was soft sand again. I was not going too fast, but I didn’t have the skill and the guts to turn sharp enough so I only had time to think oh shit and the next thing I know is that I’m spitting sand and blood.

My motorbike buddy said that I somersaulted from the bike and landed on my head, face first. I can’t remember the flight through the air, but I do remember hitting my head. I wasn’t in any pain though, all my limbs were working fine, I don’t think I even have any bruises. It’s just my face that’s the problem. When I hit my head, it pushed down the helmet and the edge of the visor hit me in the chin just below the lower lip. But since I wasn’t otherwise hurting, I just washed out the worst of the blood and sand and my motorbike buddy rescued the Tricker from the ditch and apart from a dislocated fender it was just fine. We pushed the fender back in place and continued the trip!

At home I had a closer look at the cut in my chin. It was still oozing blood and puss and I found out why – it’s really deep. And it’s not just the cut on the outside, but the inside of the lip looks even worse with two long and deep cuts which are now turning blue. If I lived in Ljusdal, I’d go to the ER but now I just have to hope that I did a good enough job with the the disinfectant. I’m a bit worried that there’s still dirt in the deep cut though.

But regardless, thank you helmet. Even if the visor gave me a split lip, without the helmet I’d suffering from a split skull!

What can I say, how lucky am I to be writing this? How lucky am I that there were no rocks on the side of the road, just sand? How lucky am I that I crashed where I did, and not two metres further where there’s a small creek running under the road? How lucky am I that I wasn’t travelling any faster than I did?

Why am I always so lucky? Why does it feel like I have a guardian angel looking after me, because I’ve had enough close calls but never anything serious?