Leaping before you look

One of my riding buds recently had a less than stellar riding vacation. Read it in his own words...

"Okay all, here's the scoop on my weekend festivities in Ruston.

Before I go on, I want you all to know that I was not particularly pleased with the results of the events and had hoped to recover well enough so that it would not have been an issue when I came back into town. Quite frankly, I was a bit embarrassed by it all. I initially told Sophie and Keri what had happened, because in the event I had been unable to drive the 7 hours back home, I was going to offer them whatever amount of money it took to come rescue me (and my truck) from the Louisiana woods. As it turned out, I was able to drive back and the pain and discomfort kept me awake the entire way.

Today I feel really good. It's the breakthrough day I had been expecting ever since the incident occurred. I have not taken any pain meds for almost 20 hours, and if I keep progressing at the current rate, I may be able to go for a spin around the block on a road bike next week. My head is still a little woozy and I get dizzy just getting up from a chair to a standing position, but the doctor looked inside my head with that little light thing they stick in your ear and found nothing. (That's a joke; he was looking for blood behind the eardrum and did not see any).

I downplayed things and tried to tough it out as long as I could before seeking professional medical help, but by Tuesday things were not getting better, so I reluctantly went to the doctor. The verdict:

Concussion

Separated shoulder (the actual term is 1st degree separation of the A/C joint, whatever that is)

Compression fracture of the lower spine

Plus some cuts and bruises that have already mostly healed

Here's my story...

We were coming out of the woods onto the perimeter dirt road that surrounds the boundary of the Park. There were 4 of us, all strong riders with lots of mountain biking experience. We were operating on some pretty fresh legs, too, as we had stopped after about 40 minutes of riding to exit the trail near the campground so Hans could fix a flat. I was in the lead on a borrowed bike; a Titus Racer X that was like riding a magic carpet. The RX wasn't the lightest mountain bike on the planet, but it was one of the smoothest and fastest. It would pliantly plow over rocks and roots like they weren't even there; stiffen up like a board and scamper up climbs as if it were a mountain goat on steroids; and rail down descents like a runaway train. I felt right at home on this bike and believed that I could take risks on the trail that I would never have considered on the DeKerf and the bike would bail me out. It had done so already on a number of occasions that day and the week before, when I had first ridden it on the local trail in Ft Walton Beach. As I exited the woods in front of my friends, I looked ahead on the trail and saw a long sloping downhill that was straight and relatively smooth. There was a small hump towards the bottom of the hill that looked to be a perfect launching point to get a little air before reaching level ground. I was the only one of us that had ridden the Ruston Trail more than once, so I would yell out upcoming features of the singletrack as we were speeding through the woods. Sometimes I would yell out a warning about soft sand in a turn, or tell them a big climb was coming up, or that there was a low tree branch ahead. The other guys were behind me and this time I called out to them: "Big Ring, Boys!"

As in: shift into the hard-to-pedal gears because this downhill is an area where we can go really fast.

I sped up and shifted gears, picking up speed as I raced down the hill towards the small hump in the trail. I was going so fast and concentrating so hard on the singletrack that I didn't really pay attention to the sign posted along the side of the trail about 10 feet from the take off point. It read: "Caution SLOW Down" and had 3 arrows pointing at the ground indicating there was a steep decent ahead. I flew by the sign and cranked one more powerful turn out of the pedals before I launched off the berm into the humid morning air.

I remember thinking that this was a really long leap I had just taken and for a few seconds was filled with the exhilaration of being free of the earth, if only by about 8 feet. The bike traveled in a gentle arc downrange, with me crouched over the saddle, my hands firmly on the handlebars and feet clipped in to the pedals. I estimated my speed at liftoff at around 28 mph, although Phil and Gary thought it was more like 30. It doesn't really matter; I was flying through the air and enjoying it. Then the front wheel of the bike started to fall towards the ground and my level attitude was pitched forward, nose down. Suddenly I was looking over the handlebars at the orange dirt and sharp rocks rushing towards me and my mind conceived a single, coherent thought just before impact: This is going to hurt.

The front tire hit first, 57 feet from where I had left the earth, and the bike pitched me over the handlebars, head first into the dirt. I didn't have time to take my hands from the handlebars and try to break my fall; my head hit squarely and I heard a CRACK! as the momentum carried my body forward. (That was my helmet thwacking the ground and cracking, perfectly doing the job it was designed for. Thanks Giro!) I rolled into my right shoulder, and then onto my back and flipped over one more complete revolution as the inertia of the crash carried me down the trail, finally coming to a rest (so to speak) an estimated 71 feet from where I had started the maneuver.

There was a lot of gritty dirt in both of my eyes, and I blinked to try to get them to clear. The right eye could see, but there was a red sticky film over my left eye and a sharp pain over my eyebrow. I could feel the blood flowing down the bridge of my nose into my left eye. My back was in great distress, and I was lying in the sun with my right arm pinned behind my back. My shoulder was screaming in pain for it's freedom from the weight of my back on it, and I tried to roll over to free it. That's about the time Hans arrived on the scene and he put a cautious hand on my chest and advised: "Don't move."

I obliged.

Gary rolled his bike slowly over the hill next and I heard a conversation going on around me as soon Phil rode up on his bike. I don't remember too much, other than the pain and being uncomfortable in the hot sun. They pointed their Camelbacks at me and hosed off much of the dirt and blood from my face and shoulder to make sure there were no deep cuts that would require immediate medical attention. Some water got up my nose and I remember being very annoyed by this. As soon as Phil determined that the Care Flight helicopter was not required, he immediately left the accident scene to race back to the campground and retrieve the video camera so he could at least salvage the aftermath of the mishap. I tried to get up once, but got very dizzy and lost my balance, falling into Phil and retreating to the earth. After about 10 minutes I did get up and surveyed the scene. Miraculously, the bike barely had a scratch on it! Somehow I got back on the bike and we all rode the asphalt path back around the lake to the campground. By then the adrenaline and endorphins were starting to wear off, and my body felt like a smashed bag of Fritos. I made it up to the washroom at the campground to shower off the blood and dirt and took some pain pills and rested. Hans, Gary and Phil, disappointed that they had not been able to get photographic evidence of the mishap as it occurred, went out on the trail to do a "made for TV reenactment". I saw the video later, and although it hurt very much to laugh (or cough, or sneeze or breathe), I could not help myself and nearly brought tears to my eyes.

That was the last riding for me for awhile, and the 7 hour drive back to Navarre was an adventure all in itself. A story for another time... "


I need some Tylenol just reading that story.