Things not to do when you are mountain biking
Number one, and this applies to plain biking in general, never squeeze the front handle break by itself unless you are going uphill. You will perform what bikers call "ass-over-tea kettle". The way it happens is when you squeeze the front handle break really hard, and with the law of gravity and physics all working against you, the forward motion of the wheel suddenly coming to a stop will cause the rear part of you and your bike to roll over itself. As you start to come up over your handle bars there is a brief moment you have where you think to yourself.. "Dear lord, this is going to hurt." Then there is that moment of darkness after you hit the ground, your eyes are closed, you feel a little bit of pain, and your brain goes through its own kind of system check (Arms? check, legs? check, Head able to move? check, open eyes slowly.. Check). Once your eyes are open you slowly look around and then slowly start to move any of your other limbs to see if they are not broken. Then the next thing to go through your mind, if you are a normal person, is what is the condition of your bike. I have heard countless stories of people getting into horrible accidents and the first thing to cross their mind is their bike, they have no worry about their physical being what so ever.
Number two, if there is moss, grease, ice, or anything resembling a slippery surface. TRY TO AVOID IT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE! I cannot stress enough on how important it is to stay away from slippery surfaces. My father had a really bad accident one day, when his bike slipped out from under him and he broke his collar bone, fractured his arm or something and then had a really bad bruise on his pelvis. He had like a belt of purple around his waist, which was perfectly straight, it was abnormal...
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