Note: I uploaded large pictures so you can click on them and zoom in see full size photos.
Today was NOT a banner day. We stayed up late again and woke at like 8:30. The plan today was to go with Jack and Trish to a local ski joint and do some more downhill mountain biking. Remember we've mentioned on occasion that it's pretty cool. Well, the tide changed a tad today in the cool department. More on that later...
We got over to their house after a monster breakfast of mushroom, onion and cheese omelet assuming there would be exercise involved. As Jack was adjusting gears and Kim was entertaining one of the girls, I dropped my seat height hoping it would give me more comfort in the gnarly tight stuff. As I was tightening the bolt back up, it snapped right in the middle. NOT GOOD! I made a call to the nearest bike shop and he said he didn't have anything. I didn't like that answer so I went over there anyway. Nice enough guy...he took it as a challenge and was able to get it fixed. Something Jack and I could have done but in hours instead of minutes given the fact that we'd have to go to Home Depot. So bike shop dude fixed my seat post clamp and I bought Kim a new set of tires as the ones she's been riding are not ideal for the terrain out here. When I got back, we quickly spooned on the new tires and off we went to Schweitzer Mountain Ski Resort.
They must all be similar in nature. Up a steep windy hill to a village of sorts with cute little shops and food and healthy people all around. We got tickets, jumped on the lift and headed up.
The view was amazing here too. Beautiful lakes below and mountains surrounding us. This never gets old. We took a couple photos since we all have the same bikes and look like total dorks then we headed to the trail.
The Bear Grass trail was listed as difficult but the last two that we've done (the only two ever) that were listed as difficult really were not. This one was difficult. It was very dry and dusty and very rocky. So much so that we couldn't really get any speed to speak of because we were constantly dodging rocks...the kind that will hurt you or at least flatten a tire. Jack and Trish were true sports having not been on their mountain bikes for quite some time. Trish has never been a huge fan of technical mt bike riding so this was way outside her comfort zone. But she did it anyway without too many challenges by gravity. We were having a "meh" time of it and then it began to smooth out just a tad. Finally. Just after that, we came to the skills park.
This was just a steep section with three different routes. From the top, (the pic is from the bottom so think backwards) the left was the easy path with no features. The middle had three or four progressively larger drop-offs then some jumps below them. The right lane was a series of jumps the size and intensity of which are determined totally by speed. You go fast, you fly high. You go slow, you roll right over them and an infinite selection of in betweens. First trip, Kim went left and I went right and rolled slowly over the jumps. Kind of scary thinking of going fast. Those down-hillers are nuts. Then we went back up and both assessed the middle lane. I decided to try it and made the drop offs without a hitch. I spent the majority of my childhood doing natural drops in WV so I'm kind of OK with those. That is something I should really appreciate more. Kim was at the top and after we discussed it, she opted to just do the right lane of jumps for practice.
The first two were ridden without issue. The third one was steeper and she got a tad too much speed. She caught air but got pitched forward (Stupid Klein Mantra with the short wheel base) and landed in a pile of dust. It was rather spectacular to watch because it reminded one of say, Mount St. Helens erupting. There was an event... then there was a dust cloud of monster proportions. We saw her go over her bars, something we've all done, then we saw nothing but brown. I was literally asking her how she was because we couldn't see her for many seconds. When the dust began to settle and we determined that if anything was broken, it was probably only (ha) a rib, we got a glimpse of the aftermath...and we laughed. I was terrified that the love of my life was damaged then when I found out she wasn't horribly disfigured, I laughed right in her face. You can see why.
laughing hurts
This next picture is a little gross but it gives a pretty good sense of what she must have endured. She blew her nose and this is what we saw...
In case you're wondering...the answer is yes. That is a rock. :)
Though it is difficult to see in the pictures, there was a fair amount of elevation change happening in that short stretch of jumps and such. So when Kim got launched at the top of that jump, she went into the air then didn't land till mid way down the back side of that jump. My guess is that her over all fall was probably around 6 or 8 feet before she landed on her bike and the ground before tumbling / sliding a little farther. Imagine climbing on top of the roof of your car, holding a bicycle in your arms and diving into the air onto the ground and landing on anything but your feet. Uh huh... That's gonna leave a mark.
She was pretty sore but didn't seem to notice the surface damages until we started pointing them out to her...like the cut on her thigh,
the rash on both forearms, the small hole in her knee and the huge knot in one of her calves. For reference, the cut on her leg was through a thick neoprene knee brace and the rash on her arms was through a long sleeve jersey neither of which ripped. This all took a back seat to the fact that she couldn't really breathe without significant pain. She was being an amazing sport but was very smart in her realization that this was adrenaline that was keeping her moving and smiling. She knew it would wear off quickly then things would get ugly fast. So, we put Humpty Dumpty back together again, she slammed some ibuprofen and we finished the ride in a very different manner than we started it. Luckily, the trail wasn't long to begin with and it didn't take very long to get to the bottom. We all opted to cut our losses for the day and head home. The ride home was no fun because right turns hurt Kim bad. I tried to drive gingerly but it's a truck after all.
There was one positive note on the way back, however. Just a few minutes on the road and we stumbled upon a momma and baby moose feeding near the road. Pretty cute really. Thanks to Jack for noticing and pulling over for the photo op.
We headed back to the trailer to address the boys and get Kim cleaned up. That was a challenge for her because apparently almost every movement requires use of your core body muscles. When those are in great pain, everything hurts. Oh, and you know how in every day speech people use superlatives when they aren't really accurate? Like someone will say, "He always says that" or "There's never a cop when you need one" or "There were cops everywhere"? Well, as Kim was preparing for her shower and taking her clothes off, we realized that she did indeed have dirt and dust everywhere. ...nuff said.
We headed back over to Jack and Trish's to finish another load of laundry in their futuristic laundering devices that we had to take lessons on how to use. Jack was preparing dinner again (I love this man) and we played with the little ones until they ran out of stall tactics and were dragged off to bed. Dinner was amazing as usual. You'd think that something like turkey tacos would be kind of plain or somehow an average meal. You'd be wrong, really. He made his own tortillas and the final product was wicked good. After clean up, we headed back to the trailer and got Kim into bed hoping and praying for quick healing. Feel free to join in on those prayers.
Though not the best day of our journey so far, we are both very grateful that Kim's injuries are minor. She is fully aware that she could have snapped any of her bones, particularly her neck. Given the spectacular nature of the crash, she walked away quite lucky...lucky to walk away.
No comments:
Post a Comment