Couple along bike trail shows utmost concern
My early- teen granddaughter and I were going for a bike ride on the MonYough section of the Great Allegheny Passage Trail.
I took our bikes off the vehicle at the trailhead at Greenock in Elizabeth Township, and we prepared for the ride. We have been riding here since she first learned to cycle.
She mounted her bike, and I prepared to mount mine. I leaned the bike over and was swinging my leg over it to mount when the wheels slid out from under me on the gravel at the side of the trail. The bike went down, and I fell with it. I toppled rather slowly and was somewhat twisted on top of the bike. I brushed my face on the gravel.
I wasn’t really hurt, other than severely bruising my pride. My glasses had fallen to the ground, and a lens had popped out of the frame. I stayed there for a few seconds, told my alarmed granddaughter to pick up my glasses and the lens, and began to extract myself from the bike.
As I was getting up, a couple approached, jumped off their bikes and ran to me. “All you all right? Do you want me to call for an ambulance? Can I help you get up?”
I assured them that I was all right, but they insisted that we go to a nearby bench so they could make sure that I was OK. I had a scratch on my face, and the woman, who introduced herself as Barb, poured some water from her bottle onto a tissue to clean the scratch. She also snapped the lens back into the glasses.
The handlebars on the bike had been turned, and Barb’s husband used a wrench to loosen, straighten and then tighten the bars so that they were properly aligned.
The ride had ended before it began, and after about 15 minutes, when Barb and her husband were assured that I was OK, they walked back to our vehicle with us. They watched as I loaded the bikes. As I was getting in,
Barb talked to my granddaughter at the passenger side, instructed her to watch me as I drove home, and said if I showed any problem at all, she should make me pull over and for her to call 911.
I am accustomed to biketrail people looking out for one another, and I used the example of Barb and her husband to tell my granddaughter how we should do the same.
We want to give a big thank you to Barb and her husband for their true act of kindness.
ED and EMILY BECK
West Mifflin