Helmets Continued

Shortly after my fall, I took about two minutes to figure out where I was. I don't think that I was fully concussed, but my bell was definitely rung. Then, I jumped back on the bike and continued. Every few minutes, the whole crew would stop and make sure that everyone was still on track. When they saw me, they had quite a laugh.

In all, the trail is about 10 miles. I made it five miles in and our group of seven turned into a group of four. Three others turned around early. About half way back to the start, I look down to see that my front tire was flat, and it was starting to get dark. Great!

I walked it in and took some more clever insults from my buddies. All this said, I think I am going back in two weeks. With a helmet.

Once I got home, my ear was in need of cleaning. I jumped into the shower and rinsed off as much as I could. Then I asked Carrie to clean my ear with peroxide. She did a great job, but there was one area she didn't clean. A small chunk of my ear had dirt underneath it. She just couldn't do it. By the way, I hope you don't have to feel the pain of someone rubbing a Q-Tip on a messed up ear...it hurts.

Then, I had to call my mom. Mom can do anything. She came over with a whole kit of first aid supplies. She laid me down on the couch and went to work. She pulled back the chunk of my ear and cleaned inside. By the way, that hurts. All this said, I am very thankful to have friends that think enough of me to invite me mountain biking. I am thankful for a wife that watched my baby and let me go, and did as much first aid as she could handle. Finally, I am thankful that my mom drops everything to come over at 9:00 at night to fix me up.

Helmets Are For Wimps

Tonight some friends from work invited me out to go mountain biking. I've never been mountain biking, but it sounded fun. By the way, I haven't been on my bicycle in around 10 years. Again, sounds like fun. Riding a bike is like, well, riding a bike.

As we all meet up at the trails, I notice that everyone has two things that I don't. Helmets and water. I understand the water, and I just forgot. Next time I will surely bring a water bottle. I grew up riding bikes. My brother and I probably logged 1000 miles on our bikes as children. Mom and dad would give us a ride to some places but the majority of our travel to school, the pool, the park, or to friends houses was on our bikes. All of this riding, and I never wore a helmet. Helmets are for wimps. Also, I consider myself a bicycle expert - mostly based on my experience as a child.

The trail started kinda rough. It took me a while to get used to the gears and the braking, but I quickly got into form. There are a couple of accomplished riders and they take off and get way ahead of us. I settled into the middle of the pack. I wasn't the slowest nor the fastest. About 10 minutes into the ride, DK, the guy that organized this ride, wiped out right in front of me. I made sure he was OK, then I pointed and laughed. Apparently, when mountain biking, wipeouts are very common. We stopped and (they) got some water. We chatted and laughed at DK for a moment, then took off again.

Right when we took off, there was a giant downhill slope that was all gravel. The slope was so steep that I had to lean back in my seat and ride low to avoid flipping over the handle bars and I zoomed up the other side. All of the fast riders were on top of the hill to see who had the guts to attempt to ride down this hill. This guy did!

A couple minutes later, there was another steep hill and I again zoomed down it...no problem. Then with all of my accumulated speed, I climbed up the other side...problem. Right at the top of the incline, there was a large tree root, so I was just going to jump it! Well, that didn't happen. My front tire hit the root and stopped. Problem is, I was still moving. I flipped over my handle bars. When you ride, most of your upper body weight is on your hands, so when you flip over, your hands are under you and there is nothing to break the fall. Well, nothing except the top your head. The first part of my body to hit the ground was my head, just over my right eyebrow. Then my right knee, right shoulder and finally right ear. That's right, my right ear:




Be sure to check out the ol' blog tomorrow to read the rest.