Launched

Before The Fall

Had some great vacation time with Jan and Andrew during my blogging hiatus.

Got down to Mesa Verde and out to Telluride and spent some time up in Steamboat Springs too. Beautiful earth, fun towns and a whole lot of mountain biking.

Took Andrew on his first mountain bike ride in late May and he’s already knocking off high end intermediate trails. Not bad, particularly since he’s riding a rickety Schwinn hard tail that rattles his teeth with every rut and rock.

The ‘highlight?’ We rode a trail out of Steamboat that ended with a sweet drop down a four wheel drive road. The word was a couple of short uber steep stretches torn up with foot deep and 16 inch wide ruts. Beyond that we could let ‘er rip.

Heavy rains hit the area a week before we got there, but I figured the road would be dry by the time we rolled through. Wrong.

We flew around a corner and hit some 5 inch deep mud.

Andrew ended up in a mini-mud lake and got covered head to toe.

I ended up sliding right into one of those big old ruts. My front wheel dropped in and just stopped dead, throwing me over the handle bars.

I’ve had ‘endos’ before, but I got launched this time. Landed about 5 feet down the road on some rocks and then had the bike land on me. Thank you very much.

Thought I'd broken my thumb or wrist but turned out to be nothing more than a bad bruise. Did slightly fracture a rib. Pretty lucky, though I’m still trying to avoid sneezing or coughing these days.

After the initial jolt we both just busted up. Andrew was looking especially sweet after his "bath."

No serious injury, a cool ‘agony of defeat’ crash, and some good story to tell. What could be better? :^)