I seem to have been quite lucky, especially considering the frankly very stupid things I did on a bike when I was a kid. You know how it is - you have no idea of death at that age.
I once built a sledge and took it out on a hill. I'm not much use at DIY now, but I was completely incompetent when I was 11. The sledge came apart, I went headfirst into a tree and ripped my arm on a nail from the broken sledge, from my wrist to my elbow. I walked about two miles through the snow, bleeding merrily all over the place and without much idea of where I was or what I was doing. So it's a good job I knocked myself silly on the tree, or else I might have panicked
I had enough presence of mind to go to my neighbours rather than home, because I didn't want to upset my mother. Dazed, blood-soaked children can really ruin a parent's day. Nothing serious with the head injury and the arm wasn't as badly injured as it looked, so it wasn't too bad.
When I was 5 or 6, something went wrong with my bike and it stopped dead. I flew over the handlebars and by complete fluke landed on my feet after somersaulting. Unfortunately, no-one was around to see it. I would have been famous for a month if someone had
From my point of view, my worst accident was during a hillclimb down in Kent. A big hill leading into Chatham, just the job for youths with a bike and little sense. You could overtake cars on the descent! I broke my bike's speedo doing that - it read 40mph and snapped. I thought that was totally cool, because I was an idiot
I used to cycle up it, because it was there. One day, standing in the pedals, I slipped and came down right on the crossbar. Unsurprisingly, I passed out from the pain. Luckily, I fell left and ended up in the gutter rather than the middle of the busy road. I was brought round by filthy gutter water running into my mouth. Lovely. I couldn't breathe. The pain was so severe, I couldn't use any muscles and I didn't think to just let automatic breathing work. I didn't think at all, the pain was too great. So I was in agony, not breathing and in a right old panic. Someone asked if I was all right. That was such a dumb thing to say that it has stuck in my mind for over 20 years. They must have just walked off when I didn't reply, because I stayed in the gutter until I could crawl to the verge and pass out again (crawling was appallingly painful). It took me over an hour to get up the hill that day and I hurt for days afterwards.
) to the hospital, roads are very bumpy at the ski slopes!! They tried to keep me in hospital but I hate the places so never got any decent pain killers and was allowed to go home. 
