So the weather on Saturday was great, blue skys with a couple of small
clouds, nice and warm at 32c, a bit humid at 96% and I figured the rain
from Friday evening would have left the trails nice and tacky. I head
out on a local route that takes me out of the valley I life in, into
the next and then around the ridge line back into my nieghbourhood,
usually about 90 mins. It's a mixture of tarmac, fire trail and single
track through some lush tropical rainforest.
The climb out from home always gets me, without any warm up you've got
to climb 1000ft up the road to where the trail kicks off to the right.
Then it's a broad bench cut trail ( a possible planned road that never
got completed) up a further 300ft before an excellent drop back down
into the next valley. This is about 3 miles of pretty steep downhill,
nothing overly technical, but with the recent heavy rains a lot of
water cuts across the trail. All of which are hidden by the thick
growth of grass and vine and thank god for 7 inch travel forks. Because
of the nature of the this trail there's very few places to let rip, so
you spend a lot of your time with the brakes on and they get hot, a
couple of times I've had to stop and wait for them to cool down.
Then it's back onto tarmac for the climb back up the ridge line, the
path up there cut's through more dense rainforest, you are surrounded
by butterflys, bats, the odd snake and huge spiders which seem to take
pleasure in building webs across the trail. This time I managed to
avoid getting a 3inch spider in the face, but one did take a hitch on
my leg before I noticed him, I screamed like a girl and knocked him off
onto a leaf.
Then it's the long drop back into my valley, this trail passes through
some farm land before re-entering the forest. I've yet to work out how
the local farmers grow such excellent tomatoes on hillsides that
average around 30 degrees in slope. The path down from these fields is
more of a working trail for the farmers to reach their fields, never
built for mountain bikes, very narrow (<10inchs) and with frequent rock
steps and wash outs. And with it being the rainy season, lethal. So I
begin to pick my way down, a hop here, a slide there, lift the wheels
over the odd fallen tree and crossing numerous small streams and pools.
I'm loving it. Until I attempt to cross a stream I've ridden a dozen
times. This stream cuts diagonal across the trail (which is wider here,
maybe 8 ft, to allow the farmers to get their 4x4s closer to their
crops), creating a small drop of about 1ft on to today some very wet
rocks. I think my mistake was going too slow, normally I ride over this
with a small manual, but today I try and pick my way across, wrong. My
front tyre get's caught and twists to the right, the back wheel starts
to rise. Time slows down. Ok so I'm going over the bars, no worries, I
unclip and begin bring my legs up, I'm going to save this. No, the
bikes still rising and I can't get my right leg clear of the top tube.
I extend my left leg out to attempt to catch myself. But of course the
trails dropping by about 2ft here and my left foot doesn't connect.
Back wheel still rising, I'm going forward and down and so I push out
my left hand to catch myself. Normal time returns and I hit the ground
with a thwack!, roll a couple of times and look uphill in time to see
my bike following me and attempting to land a handle bar to the ear. I
sort of catch it with my right hand and everything stops.
Bikes fine, apart from busted seat, then I start checking myself. Cut
ankles, grazed left knee, left elbow sliced up like stewing steak and
ow, what the f*&k is wrong with my left hand? Should my fingers be
pointing that way. I sort of straighten my fingers, there's pain, but
no funny lumps under the skin. I start telling myself, get up, get back
on the bike, come on yer big jessy. I figure if I can shake it off,
finish the trail and get home I'll be all good. So I do, there's still
about a mile of technical trail to go and now I can barely grip with my
left hand and it's too painfull to pull up. I clean the last of the
trail, don't know how, hit the tarmac and ride home.
Question is, how much do I tell the wife as she always gets made when I
bust myself up? Today is x-rays on the hand to see whether I've broken
something or it's just sprained. It does feel better today and with
luck (i.e. it's not broken) I should be back in the saddle in two
weeks.
Laters,
Marz