Trees
I like trees generally. Lately, however, a couple of trees have been problematic for me. Now, I do not want these isolated incidents to turn into a generalization about trees, but right now, I am not very happy with trees.
On Friday, November 23, 2007, I went with Jared to try out "Bruce & Toms Excellent Adventure" somewhere in Gloucester. Cool place, but much of it way beyond my skill level. Huge, rickety (and a few not so rickety) built up skinnies, drops, teeter todders, and jumps, not one of which I could do. I spent the much of my time sliding down dangerous rocks on my ass. There were no "opt out" trails. Anyway, Jared and I were riding, having a pretty good time, despite the treacherous built-up terrain. We rode up to the top of a large rock and came to the descent. The descent was about a 5 foot drop onto a short ledge (maybe 5 feet wide) and then a steep roller down the remaining 50 feet, which leveled out briefly on a pine needle, wet leaf covered flat area (this one, about 7 feet wide). At that point, you had to take a skinny (about 8" wide) that rolled out to a drop of about 15-20 feet and land either on a wooden transition ramp that followed or in the rock garden below.
We skidded down the first drop to the small ledge. Rolling the rock face seemed simple enough and I went first. Unfortunately, it was much steeper than it seemed and the rock was slippery. Slight modulation on the brakes caused me to skid, so I was trying not to brake, but still maintain enough control to stop at the second ledge. I certainly had no intention of taking that skinny/drop. I ended up going way to fast and at the end of the roller was an unexpected lip with about a foot drop. After dropping, for some reason my speed on the wet leaf/pine needle covered rock ledge sent me on a trajectory into a tree. I tried to steer away, but ended up slamming my bar into the tree, which in turn, slammed my fist into my sternum. I fell on the ground, unable to breath as the wind was knocked out of me. Jared was standing at the top yelling down to ask if I was all right. I could not talk because I had no breath, so I began waving my hands around wildly. He yelled, "did ya get the wind knocked out of you?" I gave him the big thumbs up sign. Shortly thereafter, I began breathing and got out of the way for Jared. Jared came down it with similar problems to mine and came within about 2 inches of hitting the same tree. Fortunately, he learned from my mistake. (Note to self: never be the first one to try something.)
My sternum hurt, as did my right shoulder and ribs. I could feel it when I breathed, but we kept riding. That evening, my sternum, shoulder and ribs became more sore. The next morning, I woke up and could barely raise myself out of bed. I was miserable and Milissa was becoming frustrated with me. We tried to run some errands, but I was in a lot of pain and dizzy because it was hard to breath. She wanted me to go get an x-ray, but I resisted. She finally scared me into it by talking about pneumonia and punctured lungs. I looked up sternum injuries on the information superhiway. The articles I found stated that "women with osteoporosis" have greater risk in injuring the sternum. Damn, that's me. I grudgingly went in to the Faulkner Hospital ER for an x-ray. After a lot of waiting around, the PA confirmed that I had not broken any ribs or my sternum, but had simply bruised them. Then, I got a speech from both the PA and the Nurse about breathing. Apparently, that is the danger with this type of injury: you begin to breath shallowly because it hurts and then you get pneumonia. The PA wrote me a prescription for some narcotics and sent me home.
Last Saturday, November 17, I also had an unfortunate encounter with a tree and the tree clearly won. Thomas, Jared, Christopher and I were riding at "Vietnam." We came upon a really nice drop. Bowers went right off it without a thought. The other boys both declined. I wanted to do it. So, I sat at the top for a bit, attempting to visualize the act (pedal, looking ahead, preload - lift, land). Unfortunately, I did not visualize what would happen after I landed. I finally went for it and executed the move quite beautifully, I must say, except for the part after I landed. When I was in the air, I became somewhat terrified by the height I was falling from; once I hit the ground I immediately grabbed the brakes and skidded on the wet leaves straight into a tree, head first. It was the side of my head, but I hit hard. I then rolled off the bike onto the ground and curled up in a fetal position. I think the gang began to laugh, but then when they saw me curled up, they became concerned. Or, at least, they acted concerned.
"Hey, you okay?"
They approached me, but I did not want anyone to touch me. Argh, that hurt! Anyway, I finally got up and Jared asked me if I wanted him to wipe the blood.
"Blood?" I said, "There's blood?"
"Yeah, you can't feel it?"
"No."
So, he wiped the side of my face. I sat on a rock for a bit and then I took out my iPhone. Jared made a picture of my face. I came back the next day (with a painful neck and stiff shoulders) and completed a post-mortem of my face and the site of the incident.
Running into trees is not good.
For even more mtb photographs, check out my .mac gallery.