Fear Of Falling

"Fear of falling comes through inexperience" said the advertising slogan for a bungy jumping company in Northern Thailand. After my second motorbike stack today I'm starting to believe it. Falling is something I'd like to try to avoid but when it happens I figure I should at least try to fall well.

The first time I came off my motorbike was due to some eejut on wheels coming down the wrong side of the street at night. We had a head-on collision but I somehow landed on my feet. No damage.

Yesterday I was trying to avoid another crash. A motorbike came flying towards me from a side street and I felt sure that were were about to have an accident. So I put on the brakes. Not so luckily for me it was just outside a building site. The wind had scattered piles of sand across the street and I hit the brakes right on one of them. I skidded and before I could regain control knew that the bike was going down. I flipped over the front and did a rather stunning commando roll in the middle of the intersection. The bike suffered just one smashed indicator cover, which was replaced on the way home for 50 cents. When I got home I surveyed the damage to my body. Nothing dramatic. There's just some slight grazing on one leg and half a dozen sexy blue bruises.

It hurts a little but I'm getting some great experience in falling.