Trail Gods Finally Got Me!!

GEEDUBYAR

I had to get this off my chest.

After laughing in the face of the trail gods for some time and adopting the mantra of hit a trail fast enough and it'll all be alright they decided to show me who's boss!

Woke up this morning, realised it wasn't raining and thought to myself while the wifes away me and the MTB will go play. After climbing to the top of the woods near me I prepared myself for the return journey back down. started to wind the bike up, got it into the big gears, then came to the steeper (but fairly short, I didn't want to make this sound more extreme that it really was) rocky section.

The thought process then went:

"Those rock look slippery"

"Oh shoot ... no grip ... everything is sliding ... this is going to hurt"

"I've caught it, I'M A MOUNTAIN BIKING LEGEND!!"

"maybe not!!"

After checking that nobody had seen me completely wipe out and have to pretend I meant to do that, I adopted the position I call the "ball of pain".

When the pain and giggle fit (can anyone explain why this happens?) finally subsided I looked up and realised the rockhopper was nowhere to be seen.

Luckily nobody came past otherwise they would have come across a random bloke lying on the floor, bleeding, in a fit of laughter.

Anyway, I finally found the bike, managed to recover it, knocked everything back into place and set off on my way ... flat out of course

Luckily it was my pride that was hurt the most ... actually scratch that ... my wrist is ******* killing me!!

nicklouse

that was not the trail Gods it was the Pixies.

rwalworth

I always wonder why I laugh when I fall off and actually hurt myself. Anyone got an answer? Is it just the irony of accepting an already sealed fate?

Anonymous

I find it particularly amusing when the trail pixies decide to water this large, very smooth, round stone on one of the local trails. Riders caught unaware go from vertical to lying horixontal on the ground faster than the laws of physics suggest is possible.
Just, WHOOOOMP. On the ground!

Grimy

I know what you mean about the uncontrolable laughter, not exaclty sure why I do it myself, but I think it has something to do with the euphorea. One minute youve realised you are about to frickin die during that eternity between the point you know your going down hard and actually hitting the ground where i'm sure time slows down, and the Next minute you realise that whilst slightly bloody'd and bruised, your going to live without serious permenent disability. Its kinda like laughing in the face of death knowing you just beat it, and actually, you came off better than the images that flashed thu your head just seconds earlyer on your time warped journey towards those knarly looking rocks or trees or whatever other impact awaited your decent from the saddle.

GEEDUBYAR

The slowing of time is a phenomena.

I seem to recall think all sorts of things before I finally hit the ground.

The annoying thing is it's a trail that I ride regularly so it's not like it was a surprise.

Anyway, live and learn.

Anonymous

Well, it's actually a curiosity of physics that time slows down, the faster you travel, so maybe if you go down in one uber-fast WHOOMP then you gain a good few seconds from your perspective to think about what's happening!

GEEDUBYAR

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Well, it's actually a curiosity of physics that time slows down, the faster you travel, so maybe if you go down in one uber-fast WHOOMP then you gain a good few seconds from your perspective to think about what's happening!

I must have been going like a rocket then as between falling and landing I got bored of thinking about the hurt coming my way and was trying to decide what I should have for lunch.

delcol

why is it after the giggles stop and (if yourable to) get up in pain why is it you automaticly walk round in circles, it like a pain releaf when you do..

Northwind

GEEDUBYAR wrote:

"Those rock look slippery"

All those hours I've put in with the wet and dry and pledge have finally paid off

geordiefreerider

delcol wrote:

why is it after the giggles stop and (if yourable to) get up in pain why is it you automaticly walk round in circles, it like a pain releaf when you do..

Very true !!!

k2rider

it makes pain dizzy and confuses it

deadliest

delcol wrote:

why is it after the giggles stop and (if yourable to) get up in pain why is it you automaticly walk round in circles, it like a pain releaf when you do..

So explain why when you bang your thumb with a hammer do you grab hold of it and lift one leg ?

benneally

GEEDUBYAR wrote:

thought to myself while the wifes away me and the MTB will go play.

No no no! Thats just wrong!

MeddlE

The reason you giggle is the thought of explaining to everyone that you fell off your push bike (because they just wont get it). The more serious (up to a point) the injury the more you giggle/laugh.

Zeroman_IR

Very true. I tore ligaments in my wrist last year falling off and conversations tended towards:

How'd you do that?

Fell off my bike.

You fell off a motorbike? Cool!

No. A mountainbike.

A what now?

A pushbike

Oh.......I see.............

MeddlE

Sounds familiar, had a similar conversation with a nurse a few years ago while she was patching up my leg.

Nurse: How'd it happen?

Me: I fell off my bike.

N: Motorbike?

Me: Nah, BMX.

N: How old are you? (Incredulous)

Me: 33 (Sheepish)

infoxicated

LOL! I know that sheepish feeling well.

I was at my doctors last week, couple of days after my 37th birthday, getting my shoulder looked at and she asks "how did you injure it?"

"I fell off my skateboard about five weeks ago and wrenched it up really high." I say.
"...I see... skateboarding? And has it limited your activity?" She asks.
"It hurts, but I can still ride my bike off-road and it doesn't bother me then." I reply.
"Motorbike?"
"Mountainbike." I confirm.
"Daddy likes riding his bike." My 3.5 year old chimes in with a cute smile.
"Do you ride your bike with daddy?" The doctor asks her.
"Yes!" My daughter says emphatically, "and sometimes he jumps over me."
"Erm... so about my shoulder." :oops:

cat_with_no_tail

infoxicated wrote:

"and sometimes he jumps over me."

So I'm not the only one who gets his kids to lie down on the patio and bunnyhops over them then. My girls find it hilarious. Shhhhh, dont tell the wife.

infoxicated

Erm... I don't really have the bottle to bunnyhop over her, so I have one of those plastic X-Line skate ramps you can get from Argos for it.

Not that I bought the ramp for the sole purpose of jumping over my daughter... she wasn't around when I got it, but I'm building her up to using it. Couple of weeks back I was jumping over her on the big ramp and I built a small one for her to jump over her teddy bear.

You can see the raw phear on her teddy's face on the big version!



The neighbours looked at me like I was some kind of ASBO parent, but she did great!

Flenser

rwalworth wrote:

I always wonder why I laugh when I fall off and actually hurt myself. Anyone got an answer? Is it just the irony of accepting an already sealed fate?

Did that a fortnight ago when I 360'd over the handlebars and broke a rib. Jumped up and laughed my head off... last laughing I did pain-free for a while I can tell you. :x

I blame the adrenalin.

Skonk

Laughing when I fall off has always made me wonder too.

I only started riding recently (3 or 4 months ago) and in that time I've had 2 pretty big crashes.

The first was on the day I bought my full sus XC bike, bottled it when I was about to go over a jump and went over the bars due to going over it too slowly. I did a combination of face plant + roll and managed to push my left elbow into my rib cage.

Caused me a lot of pain which even now (almost 4 months later) still hurts a little. I think I must have cracked some ribs, but I never bothered getting them checked out and probably stupidly of me, I continued to ride the bike (I didn't want an injury to foil my plans to get fit).

The second big crash was about 2 weeks ago when I took a downhill section of a trail too quickly, locked the brakes and hit a tree at high speed. I was thrown forwards about 10-12 feet while the bike went about 8 feet up in the air and proceeded to land on my head.

No real injury but it wrote off my saddle so ended up costing me a few quid.

But on both these occasions I vividly remember laughing both during and after the crashes, and I really don’t understand why.

Maybe it's like a disbelief of what's occurring or something, I dunno.

James.

Skippy2309

last crash I had was on my commute, got side swiped by a car which sent me down on the kerb.... took all the skin from my left palm!!! driver didnt even stop, I did the manly thing of jump back on the bike and ride home, when I got home however there was a puddle of blood on the doorstep and trail back to the accident. Got inside got the what the hell happened to you comment then passed out on the stairs

Zeroman_IR

Well, technically the really manly thing to do would have been to jump back on, chase the...individual...down, before dragging them from the car and exacting payment in blood for every bit of skin you'd lost :twisted:

Did you even get the reg?

infoxicated

Skippy2309 wrote:

Got inside got the what the hell happened to you comment then passed out on the stairs

heh!

I've had a similar experience to that - crashing up in the hills whilst racing my mate downhill, washing out and hitting a drystone wall. He said afterwards that I overtook him when it said 37mph on his bike computer, laughing like the little guy from Penelope Pitstop.

After I clipped the wall I bounced and tumbled for so long that it felt like I was in a spin dryer. When I finally stopped rolling I was bleeding from everywhere, and had a big hole in my side from where a brake lever or something had gouged out the flesh and I could see the insidey bits - a memory that still makes me wince.

That was a huge wake-up call - the realisation that there's blood seeping from elbows, shoulders, and knees, and there's a hole in your side just above your right hip while you're lying on a farm track, 200 metres up and miles from help is pretty scarey.

Fortunately, the only thing wrong with my bike was the saddle being twisted and some marks on the frame. My mate propped me back on the bike and I somehow I managed to coast the rest of the way down to my (then) girlfriend's house before I went into shock and passed out.

I left a blood drip trail the whole way, but that "fight or flight" adrenalin boost was just enough to get me somewhere safe, for sure.

I'd had that crash coming to me for a while at the time, actually - I'd been taking bigger and bigger risks and, as the OP said, the trail gods finally got me!