You could absolutely have avoided this, as it was an avoidable incident. Your wreck happened for the same reason I've gone off the bike twice this year: complacency. Nothing came out and hit you, nothing mechanical on the bike failed. You simply weren't paying enough attention to your surroundings, and that split second was all it took.
I was looking too far ahead at a corner, dropped my front wheel into a rut, and down I went. 100% my fault. The second off, I went around a corner on a path I've been around a hundred times, and hit a patch of watery silt left behind from (I'm guessing) a broken sprinkler. It was like hitting ice. Hyperextended my left wrist, ruined my favorite arm warmers.
I didn't hit the ground hard enough to break anything, so in both events I continued the ride-- the second one happened at mile 17 of 62, and I knew that if I stopped I would tighten up and be done for the day-- and rode the following day after both events. I'm not gonna stop riding because I made a mistake. I'm going to pay more attention. Those falls were lessons, your fall should be a lesson. You know what you did or didn't do to precipitate the event. In the future, make a conscious effort not to recreate that event.
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