The Power of Crystals

Seven years ago a crystal changed my life.

Metals have a crystalline structure. Atoms line up in long rows, the rows line up in sheets, the sheets line up in solid blocks of crystalline metal. When molten metal cools to a solid these crystals grow together until the metal is a great accumulation of crystals. The size of these crystals depends on the purity and speed of the cooling process. Sometimes you can only see them under a microscope, but they are always there.

Under the surface of the paint of my bike are crystals. Seven years ago the crystals of my bike had already had maybe seven years of hammering on the road. Perhaps 8000 miles. On the Sunday after my birthday I decided to take it for a run off-road. As a treat. I found a track on the map, headed for it, and enjoyed the tricky rocky section. It was a grey day, the rocks were slightly slippery, but I enjoyed the challenge and the ride home was enjoyable.

Three days later the crystals turned against me. I was braking hard at a traffic light. Somewhere deep within the structure of the front fork a crystal failed. It split from its neighbours, and within an instant pressure built up along the fault line. A whole row of crystals split themselves away from their neighbours where they had lived happily for the past seven years. In a fraction of a second the tubing that had been my connection from the handlebars to the wheels for the past seven years was no more.

I hit the road, breaking my elbow in a very nasty way. Hospital, a couple of metal pins and three months off the bike.

Of course that's a life-changing experience. I could have been very seriously hurt. I could have lost a lot of the use of my right arm. I could have decided to wrap myself in cotton wool and not do anything dangerous or risky or exciting ever again, but I didn't. As soon as I could I got back on the bike I did, despite the discomfort, and I intentionally cycled past the place the accident happened. The next summer I went to the states on holiday, the one after that I went to Morocco, the one after that I went to Alaska and so on.

You dont have to break your elbow to change your life, you just have to realise what a fragile and precious thing it is.

Baz