Alright.
So I was riding home this evening, around 5 so it was still light out.
There’s this part on the Burke where it splits up into two skinnier one-way paths that are about 3-4 feet wide. In the middle is a little grassy/muddy trough that is about 2 feet wide or so depending on where you’re at. At other points one side of the trail is higher than the other, etc.
It’s no big deal.
Even when there are people there. Ease up a bit, voice the “on your left” and cruise by. Something that’s been done numerous times over the past years.
Well.
That changed today.
I was about 10 seconds behind a pair of cyclists on this particular section when they passed this woman.
I called the “on your left” and proceeded to drift to the left of the trail and coast past…..
The infamous “oh shit” [I’m going off the road] moment came. Seeing that no one was coming in the opposite direction I decided to flow with it and head into the trough. My cyclo-cross instints told me that I could totally make this. The 34 days of rain in the past 39 days had other ideas. I sludged down through and about a quarter of the way back up the other side when the second “oh shit” [I’m going down] moment came in.
I prolly “hit the deck” doing maybe 10mph, maybe. It was enough to scratch up my knee a bit, and a little on the elbow. Not enough to mess up the shifters or even undo the fenders (they have a sort of fender-quick-release thing).
But the adventure isn’t over yet.
After getting up, brushing off and hopping back to the other side of the trail, I lept back on. Keep in mind the lady I was passing was now in front of me again.
So as I started to pass her again I said in a facetious tone “Ok, let’s try that one again”.
She then yelled out “Maybe next time you should wait until there is enough room to pass!”.
So I extended my arm straight out, gave her the thumbs-up and said “Will do”.
She then yelled something back which I couldn’t really hear because she was getting out of hearing range. I’m not too sure why she was so pissed off. I was almost going to turn around, but figured against it.
I mean. I was the one who wrecked. I suppose you could say from a pedestrians point of view that you shouldn’t pass on that section. The problem here is that in addition to the gravel walking path to the right of the paved path, you’ve got a good quarter of a mile of this split path. I don’t think you’re going to get cyclists to slow down to walking pace for this. Especially since this is usually not a problem for passing.
Anyway. In hindsight, perhaps she thought I flipped her off and said “F*ck you”. I thought the extended straight arm would help with that notion.
All in all, another totally fine by me crash.