Sunday 31 January 2010

INJURY PRONE

MTB’ing brings with it so many different challenges. At Nationals I punctured, pinch flat style. In Shepparton I punctured twice and sprained my wrist after a heavy fall. On Wednesday night I rode rocky descents blind, because I forgot to charge my light. Yesterday I saw a snake and had to push my bike up the climbs after hunger flatting. But today...well today I thought I was on a real winner! Jarrod, Glen Rea, Jason Sim, Leigh Matthews and I ventured down to Woodend for a change in scenery, finally some smooth dirt tracks we could race around. But trouble follows MTB’ers...

I was riding well to stay in contact with the boys after my epic adventures yesterday, and even started conjuring up some blogging words about how I’d completed my first MTB ride ever without crashing or unclipping. As I grew cocky I started taking some of the A lines, going over man-made obstacles as opposed to the B line which takes you around them. Then I rode up a short man-made plank to the top of a log, and face-planted off the other side :( After picking myself up we waited for Glen, who unbeknown to us had crashed at the beginning of the lap!

Jason continued to lead the way, around corners, over jumps, calling ‘heads’ when he passed under an over-hanging branch. A branch that Jarrod hit with his camelback, that scraped the back of my seat as I passed under it and came crashing down on the track infront of Leigh. Then came lap 2 where Leigh was the first to crash. Jarrod didn’t stop this time and karma would come for him. While passing one of the slower larger ladies she would attempt to move off the track, hit a tree, and take the tree with her to land on top of Jarrod! It was no surprise we headed home after two laps...