"N. D. Muscutt" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:I'm pretty new to MTBing and reading this post makes me
feel a bit better. In a way I couldn't wait until I had my
first bone cruncher. I was flying down a trail the other
day and as I came out of a bunch of brush I was confronted
by a tree. Looking bad I'm thinking that maybe I could
have avoided it with more experience, but my tendency was
to lock my eyes on that tree and I think that made me
steer into it. My first big, hard hitting endo! Luckily I
shifting my weight to the left quickly, I missed taking a
straight impact down through my neck and just peeled a
bunch of skin off my shoulder instead. Does this make me
official now?
OUCH. Very glad you are here to tell about this one.
Trees in a head-on can lead to real tragedies. Don't
take this wrong, friend, but isn't it a good thing it
was a tree instead of a PERSON? You were out of control,
as we ALL have been at one time or another, so this is
no condemnation, but the scenario you painted for us is
a prescription for trail closures. Learn from it, for
your good and for the good of other trail users. Bad
trail design (blind corners on flowing downhills, for
instance) can set you up for these kinds of incidents,
and it should be corrected, but in the real world,
probably won't be. Note that corner in your mind and get
slowed down beforehand in the future. And remember that
_anytime_ you cannot see what lies ahead, the instinct
needs to be to slow down _now_, not after it's too late.
Yep, you're official now.
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