I Ride, I Write

Feeling a little ambitious and deprived from riding, I got a wild idea to ride my cyclocross bike on the trails in Draper.

The idea was to drop the kids off at school and, weather permitting, get an hour or two of easy trail riding in before resuming daddy duty.

The downside to my plan was that I’m not a mountain biker so that trail system is foreign to me. The take care of that I posted a message on Facebook and twitter that I was hoping to ride and would welcome someone as a guide.

Brad Keyes volunteered and we hooked up at about 9 a.m. for 90 minutes of trail riding. I probably could not ask for a better guide. Brad is among the best mountain bikers in the area, is a cool dude and took it easy on me knowing I was a total newb. Brad’s expert guidance aside, the ride did not end as well as it started. Of course, my little booboo is nothing compared to some.

We started up from the Equestrian Center trailhead and meandered to the Clarks Fork trail and up we went.

The rain from last night left the trail damp but manageable for a while, but after the climbing began we decided it was too muddy and didn’t want to rip the trail up and we turned around and did a little BST-to-Ghost action. It was a pretty tough climb on the cross bike. Bard managed just fine, of course, but I’m used to a little standing when the climbing gets tough and had to continually remind myself to stay seated and back to keep the rear wheel engaged with the damp, sandy and semi-muddy trail.

After a while we turned around and I found myself riding the brakes and trying to keep myself under control. A new bike, on a new trail with slippery conditions had me afraid to let loose.

And for good reason.

On the descent I started getting a little more comfortable and let it go a bit. But on a corner with a nice little dropoff to my right, I kind of overcooked the turn. I corrected OK, but steered right into a big rock with the front wheel and abruptly sent myself over the handlebars while doing an endo.

Things went in slow motion from there. I got my hands in front and landed, but I could feel my fingers bending backward and then my wrist snapped back as well. My shoulder was next as it slammed into the trail and my head finished things off. I hit dirt with a thud and felt my helmet and glasses slam into the trail.

I’ve got a nice little dent in the helmet near the temple area that undoubtedly saved me from a more serious injury.

As it is, my right hand hurts pretty badly. Three fingers are swollen kind of like when you jam them playing basketball and try to intercept a pass but only get it with a direct shot to the fingertips. I dug a fair amount on sandy-dirt from the wounds during a shower and put some bandaids on them. I also have a nice bit of bruising and rash on the shoulder where impact happened.

But because it was hurting after the crash I couldn’t really grasp the right brake lever on the rest of the descent.

That meant I was going downhill on a trail with only a front brake to use. So it was slow going and I pretty much hit all the technical sections with one shoe unclipped so I could use my foot as a brake.

One ice pack and four ibuprofen later I’m feeling better.

But I’m positive that even with texting soccer moms applying lipstick while driving on the street, road riding is a little more safe than mountain biking — at least for me

I think this reinforces my belief.