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    Saturday, June 08, 2024

    Biden takes a spill on bike ride at the beach

    President Joe Biden is helped by Secret Service agents after falling from his bike as he stopped to greet a crowd on a trail at Gordons Pond in Rehoboth Beach, Del., Saturday, June 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

    REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. - President Joe Biden tumbled to the ground while on a morning bike ride near his vacation home here Saturday, falling as his shoes apparently got caught in the toe cages as he tried to stop. 

    "I'm good," he quickly declared, as Secret Service agents came to his aid.

    He fell while approaching a waiting crowd and, after popping back up, he spent several minutes talking with onlookers and then answered a few questions from reporters.

    The president and the first lady, Jill Biden, are in Rehoboth Beach, where they have a vacation home, as they mark their 45th wedding anniversary.

    The two were bike riding together Saturday morning on paths around Cape Henlopen State Park, but the first lady had gone ahead before the president fell.

    It isn't the first time Biden has taken a spill. He fell in December 2020 while chasing his dog Major at his home, resulting in an injury that required him to wear a medical boot for several weeks. He has also tripped while walking up the steps of Air Force One.

    Critics use each instance to raise doubts about the fitness of the nation's oldest president, although, in this case, it was an occurrence that many cyclists who clip in or have a toe cage have experienced.

    "My foot got caught," Biden said.

    He fared better than John F. Kerry, who, in 2015, tumbled over a parking lot curb in the French Alps while clipped in and fractured a femur. That fall resulted in surgery and a months-long recovery that complicated the Iran nuclear negotiations, which Kerry was leading for the United States.

    Biden bore no visible scrapes from his fall, and a White House official said later that "he is fine" and that "no medical attention is needed."

    "The president looks forward to spending the rest of the day with his family," the official said.

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