The Gap

First ride of the season. Perfect weather. The kind of conditions that make you forget winter existed. I fell behind packing the drone while the group rode ahead. That's all it took. Thirty seconds of separation and something shifts — the ride becomes a chase. I caught them in full motocross mode. Pumped. The leader had slowed down and was studying a ramp off to the side. I saw it, read it as a continuous line, and went for it. From the bottom it looked that way. A ramp, a lip, a landing. What I didn't see until I was already committed: a steep drop after the top lip, and a second ramp rising on the other side. Not a gap you miss if you're looking. A gap you miss when you're riding the idea of the ramp rather than the ramp itself. Front tire first. Suspension compressed hard. Face into the navigation tablet — screen gone. Camera snapped off the chin mount. Bike still under me. That last part was luck as much as anything else. A different landing angle and the season ends on March 8th. Before Dobrogea. Before any of it. The fourth rider behind me hit the same line and went down too. He walked away clean. The tablet was replaceable. The camera was replaceable. What I haven't quite shaken is this: I saw the leader slow down and look at that ramp. He read it. I didn't stop to ask why. The terrain didn't change between his read and mine. I just wasn't there yet.