Bush's mountain biking excursion ends with a tumble

The accident-prone president took a tumble on an intense 17-mile training ride with secret service agents and military aides at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and was treated by White House physician Richard Tubb for grazes to his face, knees and right hand.

His bicycle slipped on loose soil, throwing Mr Bush, who was wearing a helmet and mouth guard, to the ground.

"You know this president, he likes to go all-out," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy. "Suffice to say he wasn’t whistling show tunes."

Mr Bush left Crawford shortly after the bike mishap for Austin, where he was attending a party for his daughter, Jenna, who graduated from the University of Texas earlier in the day.

When he arrived in Austin, Mr Bush was not wearing any bandages, although scrapes were visible on his right temple and on his chin.

Today will see a bruised and battered president appear before the cameras to give a prime-time speech on the crisis in Iraq. It will be a familiar sight to Bush-watchers, who have charted a series of personal misfortunes to befall the president since his inauguration almost three-and-a-half years ago.

The most notorious came in January 2002 when the president choked on a pretzel at the White House and collapsed unconscious while watching an American football match with his two dogs. He came around after a few moments but had struck his head on the floor, cutting his lip and causing a large bruise under his left eye.

Dr Tubb, who has more than earned his salary as head of the White House medical unit, also treated Mr Bush then. "[The president] said [the pretzel] didn’t seem to go down right," Dr Tubb said at the time. "Next thing he knew, he was on the floor."

In August last year, Barney, one of Mr Bush’s dogs, fell victim to his master’s carelessness when the president dropped him on the runway in Waco, Texas, as he and wife Laura prepared to board a plane after a visit to a children’s baseball team.

Several of the children were upset when Barney landed on his head in front of them, but the Scottish terrier appeared none the worse for wear and the president scooped him up again quickly.

Many believe that Mr Bush, 57, has inherited at least some of his haplessness from his father, George W Bush, who became known as the "puking president" in 1992 after throwing up into the lap of Japanese prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa during a banquet in Tokyo.

Ironically, it was at a family party in Maine to celebrate Mr Bush snr’s 79th birthday last June that the younger president suffered another of his little accidents. His attempt to board a motorised scooter ended in failure when he was sent flying over the handlebars as the machine started moving.