Well, I guess it had to happen someday.
Coming home from a bike ride last night… screaming down a bumpy slope down from the top of the Malverns trying to keep up with someone who has been riding up there for 12 years. He could do this track blindfold; I’ve only done it once, and a lot slower than I’m doing chasing him. We’re going about 25mph, suspension and arms soaking up the grassy undulations.
Near the bottom… the trail I want is straight ahead, so I quickly look up to check it’s clear. Then I see it… I didn’t notice the line the person in front took, but in front of me is a grassy ditch four feet deep running straight across the trail.
The tyres scratch for grip as I brake but it’s not going to be enough, not even close. Before I know it I’m launching over the near side of the ditch, weight all wrong, and then instinct takes over.
As the bike is left behind in the gulley I land on the other side, sliding at speed down the smooth grassy slope on my side. My waist bag stops me being able to roll, but as I slow to a halt I push myself to my feet to demonstrate that I’m not dead. My shoulder has turned a reddy-brown colour from sliding in the rich Malvern soil; grass stains on my shorts and unicycle.com t-shirt (see, this is on topic) outline the area in contact with the ground. Other than a slight friction graze on my bare elbow I’ve emerged surprisingly intact, given the speed.
A bit of my leg aches. Looking down I have a peculiar shape drawn in the green pigment of the grass; over my pocket, two sides of a rectangle… roughly the shape and size of my camera. On removing the camera from my pocket it looks fine externally, but there’s no life in it; not even a flicker of the green light or any faint movement from the shutter.
The impact hit me far harder than the ground did a few seconds ago. I’ve had that camera for just over three years now; it’s been pretty much everywhere I have in that time, and recorded many of the events that have shaped my memory over those busy few years, from university to my first job at the other end of the country. It has been on every holiday I’ve been on since then; I have photos from reunions with old friends and ones from when I’ve met new ones. It hass been in various puddles, streams and fords; it has spent hours in damp, gritty conditions when the weather hasn’t been clement. I’ve landed on it before, but evidently never this hard. I’m impressed that it has lived through what it has done; it has been an awesome little camera.
Now I have to look for a new one. They no longer make the same model - a Sony DSC-U40, bought after seeing Joe Marshall’s camera of the same kind - so I’m terrified that the replacement isn’t going to be as good. For some reason crash-testing is not generally featured on internet camera reviews, and shops on the high street generally expect people to find their perfect camera by playing with the features rather than putting the camera in a pocket and running into a wall at speed.
Phil
) and I ended up buying a secondhand U20 (quite a few U20, 30 and 40 come up on ebay, but often go for stupidly high prices, presumably just because there is such a hole in the market at the moment - I had to bid on loads before I got one without paying as much as they cost new). In the end I got a U20 in perfect condition with 64mb card for £50. I’ve seen a few U40s go for over £90 and U20s up to £70.