Wear and Tear
Saturday was a group ride up San Juan to Viejo Tie to Blue Jay and then back via Old San Juan. A pretty good route and ... I believe 100% singletrack. Of course that is a huge plus.
The group consisted of me, Matt, Troy, Mark and Jason. I called this post "Wear and Tear" because on the ride my bike and I both suffered a bit. The bike wasn't shifting well and it couldn't stay in certain gears without ghost shifting and skipping. Whenever I would stop the chain would go in between the rings in the front and several times I thought I had actually broken my chain. So the bike wasn't in great shape.
When I cruised into Cocktail I noticed some pain in my right knee. I still can't remember how it got hurt. I don't think I banged it on anything and I didn't fall, so I'm not sure why it was hurting. At first I thought it was maybe a muscle/ligament issue. I tried stretching at Cocktail and it seemed to help a little. I stood on just my right leg and that made the knee hurt a lot.
Over the course of the ride I just tried to keep it loose and that seemed to help. The more active I was the less it hurt. When we would stop for a break it would get stiff and start hurting again.
After the ride when I got home I was limping around just a tiny bit due to the knee. It got pretty stiff after I had cooled down from the ride. I'm pretty sure I bruised it somehow because the damage seems to be on top of the knee and not inside (on top of the kneecap, not underneath). It felt fine the next day, so who knows.
The second injury happened on Viejo Tie. There is this short and steep uphill section about one third of the way through the entire loop, which is followed by a steep downhill with a little rock drop. The two times prior on this loop I had walked this downhill section so I figured I'd man up and ride it for a change.
I made the drop and hit the bottom more or less ok, but I was heading for a small tree so I went to lay the bike down and ended up crushing the family jewels on the back of my saddle. Both jewels took a beating and it hurt _REALLY_ bad. If the knee hurt bad at Cocktail, this was maybe 20x more painful. I got back on the bike after a bit of grunting and rode on. After 10 minutes the pain was gone. I can still feel it a little bit here and there, but it's nowhere near as bad as the Los Pinos disaster.
The final minor disaster happened after Cocktail on the trip down. I've always wondered what it would be like to miss a short section of singletrack on San Juan and then to go tumbling down the slope on the side of the trail. Well, now I know.
I came across a narrow banked section after a switchback and in the middle of riding across it I decided to put a foot down and walk instead. Dumb. Really dumb. You either ride something with confidence or you walk it. No half measures.
Obviously I wasn't able to get both feet out and on the trail before I tipped over and fell down the hill. Interestingly enough I was able to get both feet out after I hit the ground because I slid down into a small ravine about 4-5 feet below my bike. When I stopped sliding I realized that my right hand was grabbing a bunch of roots from a tree and I also realized that my left hamstring had cramped.
I rubbed out the cramp with my left hand while holding on to the roots with my right so that I wouldn't fall/slide any further. The ground was fairly flat but my instincts had kicked in and it took me a minute or so to realize I was ok and that I could let go of the roots.
I got up after the cramp died down and hiked back up to the bike and the trail. No damage done. Bike was fine and I was fine minus a few scrapes and bruises.
On a slope 4-5 feet isn't actually all that much. I've had this happen several times on other trails as well so it's not anything new to me. This just happened to be the farthest I've fallen down a slope after tipping over the edge. I know I've done this on Holy Jim twice and Viejo Tie once. Not as scary as you might think - just annoying.
(PS: It was NO HELMET DAY at San Juan as we were coming back from Cocktail. I will never understand why people ride without helmets - even on climbs. The worst accident I've ever had on a bike was when I was climbing. Helmet saved me for sure.)
The group consisted of me, Matt, Troy, Mark and Jason. I called this post "Wear and Tear" because on the ride my bike and I both suffered a bit. The bike wasn't shifting well and it couldn't stay in certain gears without ghost shifting and skipping. Whenever I would stop the chain would go in between the rings in the front and several times I thought I had actually broken my chain. So the bike wasn't in great shape.
When I cruised into Cocktail I noticed some pain in my right knee. I still can't remember how it got hurt. I don't think I banged it on anything and I didn't fall, so I'm not sure why it was hurting. At first I thought it was maybe a muscle/ligament issue. I tried stretching at Cocktail and it seemed to help a little. I stood on just my right leg and that made the knee hurt a lot.
Over the course of the ride I just tried to keep it loose and that seemed to help. The more active I was the less it hurt. When we would stop for a break it would get stiff and start hurting again.
After the ride when I got home I was limping around just a tiny bit due to the knee. It got pretty stiff after I had cooled down from the ride. I'm pretty sure I bruised it somehow because the damage seems to be on top of the knee and not inside (on top of the kneecap, not underneath). It felt fine the next day, so who knows.
The second injury happened on Viejo Tie. There is this short and steep uphill section about one third of the way through the entire loop, which is followed by a steep downhill with a little rock drop. The two times prior on this loop I had walked this downhill section so I figured I'd man up and ride it for a change.
I made the drop and hit the bottom more or less ok, but I was heading for a small tree so I went to lay the bike down and ended up crushing the family jewels on the back of my saddle. Both jewels took a beating and it hurt _REALLY_ bad. If the knee hurt bad at Cocktail, this was maybe 20x more painful. I got back on the bike after a bit of grunting and rode on. After 10 minutes the pain was gone. I can still feel it a little bit here and there, but it's nowhere near as bad as the Los Pinos disaster.
The final minor disaster happened after Cocktail on the trip down. I've always wondered what it would be like to miss a short section of singletrack on San Juan and then to go tumbling down the slope on the side of the trail. Well, now I know.
I came across a narrow banked section after a switchback and in the middle of riding across it I decided to put a foot down and walk instead. Dumb. Really dumb. You either ride something with confidence or you walk it. No half measures.
Obviously I wasn't able to get both feet out and on the trail before I tipped over and fell down the hill. Interestingly enough I was able to get both feet out after I hit the ground because I slid down into a small ravine about 4-5 feet below my bike. When I stopped sliding I realized that my right hand was grabbing a bunch of roots from a tree and I also realized that my left hamstring had cramped.
I rubbed out the cramp with my left hand while holding on to the roots with my right so that I wouldn't fall/slide any further. The ground was fairly flat but my instincts had kicked in and it took me a minute or so to realize I was ok and that I could let go of the roots.
I got up after the cramp died down and hiked back up to the bike and the trail. No damage done. Bike was fine and I was fine minus a few scrapes and bruises.
On a slope 4-5 feet isn't actually all that much. I've had this happen several times on other trails as well so it's not anything new to me. This just happened to be the farthest I've fallen down a slope after tipping over the edge. I know I've done this on Holy Jim twice and Viejo Tie once. Not as scary as you might think - just annoying.
(PS: It was NO HELMET DAY at San Juan as we were coming back from Cocktail. I will never understand why people ride without helmets - even on climbs. The worst accident I've ever had on a bike was when I was climbing. Helmet saved me for sure.)
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