Whenever the conditions in our mountain community were tolerable, I used to bike to work. We lived on a country road without much traffic, and the only real dangerous part of the trip was biking on the highway with the big tractor trailer trucks zooming by as you were on the Fraser River bridge.
One day in June of 1996 I was biking home after work. I had safely crossed the bridge and was on our road, just past what used to be Dettling’s house on Moccasin Flats. I was beginning to quicken my pace to help give me some momentum for the upcoming climb up the Mennonite Church hill. Suddenly when out of nowhere, two aggressively barking dogs appeared behind me on the road, and began chasing after me.
I slammed on my brakes thinking I would stop, and get off the bike to shake my fist and yell at them. Unfortunately, I must have pressed the front brake lever too hard, and that, along with my fast momentum, caused me to flip over the front of the bike, landing me on the edge of the road.
Fortunately, no cars were coming. The barking dogs quickly turned and hightailed it back to the house, no longer wanting to be part of the episode. Luckily, my bike wasn’t damaged, I was shaken up, but managed to I pedaled slowly home. I survived the accident with just my left wrist hurting, and my left leg was sort of “rope burned” from my jeans.
After that I was always a bit wary when approaching Dettling’s place on my bike, and while the dogs still barked at me, they allowed to go by without the chase.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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