“Was that bang in the woods YOU?”
“Yep, that was me”
“Problem with the bike or pilot error?”
“Pilot error, all the way”
“Ouch”
“Yep”
The Bear Creek STXC Series started tonight so I saddled up,
grabbed George, and made my way there a little later than I had hoped from
work. I registered for the ‘B’ race, found Gray and Jess, and in short order,
we were racing. The pack shot up the hill, where I made my way up as the only
SS rider. I was already spun out and dropping off the back, but after the two
riders ahead of me bobbled, I surged, caught the third on the final climb, and
pulled away. The technical section was rough with the rigid fork, but hey the
29-er wheels rolled over the tombstones pretty well so it was all good.
Another lap passes, Im feeling pretty good, riding right in
the middle of the pack. On each pass onto the road-climb I can still see the
leaders, so they aren’t running away from me. Lap three comes and I keep
pulling. Im starting to fatigue a little from the pace, but I don’t feel like I
need to walk…Bowman shouts ‘4 more’ as I pass the start/finish line, and I put
my head down and start to do some work- Im getting a little loose from the
effort but I still feel ok so I press on. Up the first climb, down the twisty
section, through the tight tree....***BANG*** oh, I think Im flying….thud…grunt…moan.
Hello ground, nice to meet you. So it has happened, my first real race-pace crash
of the season. These don’t happen often, but when they do they happen before
you can do much about it. I roll off the singletrack and some of the experts
who have started their pre-ride early come up to check to see if Im ok. My knee
is throbbing, guess I banged it on my flying dismount. The wind is pretty well
out of me and I feel like Im going to puke, a little from the effort I was
giving, but more from having the wind knocked out of me. I take inventory, and
other than my throbbing knee, some abrasions, and the nausea I think Im ok.
Mike Yozell comes up and helps me out of the woods as I try to figure out if I
want to continue. At first, I just don’t want to do anything, figuring that
being cautious is the smartest thing. But then, I see Jess and Gray sitting
there, with Gray asking why Im not riding my bike. I decide he needs to see me
not give up, so even with my bars pretty twisted up I saddle up and pedal two
more laps out. Im glad I did- the knee loosened up and the nausea is going
away. At the end of it, I go to him and he asks what happened. I tell him “I
crashed, bud. But you know what? Falling down gives you an opportunity to get
back up and try again, so that’s what I did. I didn’t want to give up, because
if you keep trying and don’t give up you will be able to do more than you
thought you could.” I don’t know if he understood everything I said there…I got
a little long winded for a 3 year old attention span, but hopefully somewhere
in there he will remember that ‘my daddy didn’t give up’ someday and will be a
stronger person because of the examples I am trying to show him now.
In any case, after assessing my carnage, it turns out that
the most injured part of my body is actually my thumb- I must have managed to
smash it pretty good between the bars and the frame when I jackknifed the bars.
My wheel, however, took the brunt of the crash and needed a pretty good true-up
tonight, but I think it will be fine too. Lucky for me Josh builds a strong wheel.
Meanwhile, Morrison managed to not only win the ‘B’ race, he
then turned right around, raced the ‘A’ race ending mid-pack with the experts,
and then outright won the miss-and-out final event. All that and somehow the
guy still thinks he is slow. Yeah, I don’t know what he is thinking either……
Ride fast, take chances, and sometimes you pay the price.
Tonight was my night.
/Dan