The day I got in the worst accident of my life; Storytime

Last summer I was part of the MC REU Summer Research Cohort (2024), and in our first all-hands meeting, our advisor, Erin Hostetler, told us about fun things to do around State College -- one of them was Tussey Mountain Ski Resort. I usually hate the cold, but considering it was the summer, they had a biking trail where you could rent one of their e-bikes and do a ~2.5-hour ride.

By the way, I love biking, When we were 15, my best friend and I would do ~10 km rides regularly, and we even did ~50 km once stopping for food and water. This love for biking was lost a little bit when I moved to Penn State.

Funnily enough, right around this time my best friend was visiting his brother up in Rochester, and they decided to make the trip down to State College. Early one morning, we decided to do the Tussey Mountain biking trail, and as luck would have it we got into an accident.

It was fine when we were taking the bikes uphill, slow and steady, and waiting for the epic view of the valley we were promised when we reached the peak. The views were breathtaking at the top, and we realized it had been longer than expected, so we had to pick up the pace, but there was a downhill section and what followed happened in super slow motion. My best friend's bike had minor traction loss on a patch of gravel going downhill, and as he slowly lost balance, my eyes were glued to his bike, trying to avoid him but also worried since he's falling on a gravel road going downhill from the peak of a hill and there's no railing here -- straight cliffs on the left and tall tree lines on the right. As I'm watching him fall, I slowly ease on my brakes, careful not to mash them so hard I crash myself, but in the midst of this chaos and brain overload, I lost track of the third bike in our pack -- his brother. He was ahead of the both of us, and just as I turned my head back to check on my slipping buddy, his brother slowed down to a stop (slightly sideways), and by the time I turned my head back to the front, I made eye contact with him standing still and my brain didn't comprehend this at the time, but I was going ~25 mph headed straight for his bike's rear tire. It was probably best that I didn't think much -- any direction I would have swerved would not be great safety-wise. He jumped off his bike, and his bike slowed my fall, but I hit the ground with minimal airtime and all that gravel and tiny rocks were stopped by my glasses.

Once this slow-motion action sequence straight out of a horror movie was over, I sat up, still on the ground, looked at my friend (who had a much bigger fall), and we have never laughed harder in our lives.

I will say the drive back to CVS from there wasn't as funny, and there was definitely wincing and crying when the antiseptic was applied. Funnily enough, this keeps our streak of accidents, every time we meet on vacation, alive. This was the worst by far though.

I had long scars on my face and had entirely scratched up my glasses beyond repair -- I still have those as a memory -- and since my driver's license test was two days away, the photo on my ID has me looking like an evil supervillain. My friend had a deep cut on his leg from the gravel which took longer to heal, and he was in a lot more pain, but our trip to Hershey Park was still very fun, and eating all that chocolate definitely helps with drowning your pain.

However, a scary accident was the last thing on my mind. I bought an e-bike myself -- mainly for commuting back and forth to my lab and meetings -- but loved going to the trail and taking it to class. Just in 5 months, I had put close to 400 miles on it and, in some capacity, rediscovered my love for biking.