ABUS Saved My Head!

I was racing at the final Junior Cycling Malaysia (JCM) criterium race in Putrajaya and I was in the peloton racing at full speed. That was the first time I ever raced in the leading group because I was always on my own behind the main group. I was so excited and ready for the final lap until a tragedy happened.

The category was under 13 and when I race, I usually ride on my own because I am unable to keep up with the group on the first lap. This means that when I ride on my own, I don’t have the constant worry of people riding into me or pushing me while I am on the bike but the moment I was in the peloton, I only realised then that the people that are riding there are not as skilled as I thought. 

This was partially their and my fault because I did not know that they were bad at riding in a group and they could ride fast but not in a straight line. So as I was riding with only 2 laps to go, disaster strikes. A boy was falling back from the front of the group and he didn’t want to get left behind so he decided to just blindly come into the centre lane and knock me off. 

 After that, in the process of hitting me, I managed to be pushed so far that I even pushed another boy off the group. That was when ABUS came in, he is not a person because he is a helmet. When I landed the first point of contact was my head and I had not realised how hard the hit on my head was because it felt like landing on a pillow. 

My hip was in pain, my back was in pain but luckily my head wasn’t. The way I hit the ground was so hard that my helmet got multiple dents, really bad scratches and even some parts split open. If I didn’t have my helmet, my head would have surely been in a really serious and dangerous state. The only other things were my handlebar bending really far in and really bad scratches on my bike but that was not bad.

I had only noticed the horrible damage on my helmet when I used it a month after my race. This is because I do mostly indoor training on the trainer and rollers so it was not really necessary to have the helmet. I was going for a bike skills clinic and saw the damage before I left. I am really thankful that this helmet had lasted me 3 years and SAVED MY HEAD!