Finally I fell off my bike for real - Minor OUCH

Apart from 4 falls learning clipless pedals, I had managed to stay firmly in my seat and upright,
since taking up Mtn biking about 16 months ago. But a perfect record like that had to be broken
someday, and alas, the day I've been dreading finally came.

Riding around our very pretty local lake, some person has kindly decided to place a huge triangular
shaped, concrete slope on the path. I can only assume this was going to have a plaque mounted on it,
or did have and it's been pinched, or it is there for some totally unknown other reason. But it is
right on a corner, and near a building, and the obvious "end" of this slope - which is about 3 feet
high at the end - unfortunately goes directly into trees, so if you're going to ride up the slope,
and jump off this concrete edifice, of unknown purpose, you need to go up at and angle, and jump off
the side. However, the angle needs to be very steep or you will hit the building.

So around the lake I go with 2 friends and the 3 kids of one of them. Passing this edifice, I
finally get the courage up to attempt a very beginners level jump off this thing at about the 1 foot
height - Yes I admit I'm a wimp, and I'm also too poor to replace broken parts, so I don't do
anything untoward on my very basic Hardtail - and I nailed the jump beautifully. Even the landing
felt absolutely superb, and this was the highest "jump" I'd ever attempted, and it felt great. Now
you all thought I was going to say I stacked it didn't you, well I didn't, I looked and felt like an
expert, so I decided if it felt good once, then twice would feel even better.

I approach just right, then suddenly get the ridiculous thought, that the son of one of the guys I
was riding with, was also going for the jump, I look back and begin to abort the jump, but it's too
late, and the abort attempt has put me way off line. I'm going to jump straight into the wall of the
building. A very quick angle change just at the exit from the jump meant I went off the jump
sideways. Bikes don't like landing sideways - well if they do then *I* certainly don't.

I did manage somewhere along the line to unclip in mid flight, so when we hit, the bike catapulted
me off sideways, and I hit the paving rolling. So the injuries were restricted to a grazed shoulder,
really sore ribs, a very sore knee from wrenching my foot out of the pedals I think, and a bruise on
my thigh. These will all heal soon, the pride may take a little longer.

So I picked myself, up, turned around, and went back and did the bastard again, and did it properly
the 3rd time. Well 2 out of 3 aint bad.

Now if they'd just remove the trees, so you could REALLY jump this thing. Going up and off the end
of a 3 foot high concrete ramp sounds like a blast, except that my very entry level Merida Matts
Striker Pro, would probably do what I saw one mtn bikers bike do at the tail end of the news last
night. They showed a painfully small snippet of some Mtn bike championships, and showed primarily
the crashes, including one bike snapping in two upon landing. Mind you he was going off a jump about
2 storeys high, so you're probably asking quite a lot of a bike to do this.

Mind you, they had some odd torture implements set up for these bikers to navigate. Most of which
seemed to be about 6 feet off the ground in some sort of "aerial challenge" where you navigated very
narrow paths up high. One of these obstacles to navigate including a hinged boom, with a sliding
plate on it. You ride along the course, onto the plate on this boom, where you apparently are meant
to brake hard and quickly, and cause the plate to slide out to the end of the boom with you and the
bike on it, the boom then pivots down as your weight moves to the end of it, and you - supposedly -
ride off onto the ground. The only shot they showed of it, was someone falling from it about mid
pivot downward, falling about 3 feet, and landing with the side of his helmet on a rock. It didn't
look like my idea of fun, but it is about the same way I'd have landed if I'd tried it.

I'm now sure that Mtn bikers - apart from myself - are totally insane.

Trentus

 

"Trentus" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Apart from 4 falls learning clipless pedals, I had managed to stay firmly
in
> my seat and upright, since taking up Mtn biking about 16 months ago. But a perfect record like
> that had to be broken someday, and alas, the day I've been dreading finally came.
<snip>
>
> I'm now sure that Mtn bikers - apart from myself - are totally insane.
>
> Trentus

Hope that the ribs and bruises get better quickly. But all the same welcome to the Club! My shoulder
is just about 100% after doing the AC joint about 6 weeks ago. That slide sounds crazy. Some of that
extreme stuff is just an entirely different sport, isn't it? "It's mountainbiking, Jim. But not as
we know it."

Westie