Unusual Crash Test Dummie

The leg and arse is worse.

Damn, it was nearly a perfect run. Eric laid down the law on the blue ribbon and tried to dampen my spirit. His climbing seems a bit better than the last time I rode with him. And it was pissing me off but I will say this: If you hammer me on the climbs, I will retaliate. That was the theme, he was going to try and break me on the first couple hills, before I could get my recover down tight. We went in through Zombie Road, a favorite of Eric. It adds the additional 5 miles on what ins normally an 18 mile loop. We both have been training, as has our third, Thrasher, the smartest Schmaggie in the world.

A couple interesting things happened today. In the first 5 minutes I broke a front spoke and Eric flatted. This gave way to stop and go until I finally convinced Eric to put a tube in his rim. Yes, he is one of those "Stans" guys. The guey glue stuff that rarely works in the woods, we stopped a few times to he could roll the tire around, re inflate, repeat, until we got to the parking lot. I was feeling better by then. Not quite able to shed him in the flats, there were many hikers, as usual on the Sunday afternoon at Castlewood.

So we decide to go up Grotpetter. First we stop and talk to Ted Weiss. We were standing there and suddenly the power lines begin the shake and all the poles begin to shake. A tree suddenly fell in the woods and took out the power lines and, get this, started a fire. We went looking for it up the driveway to Ranger Loves house, finding ourselves standing in the middle of some downed "hot" power lines. Pretty freaky. We got the hell out of there. Of course, a couple fair weathers told us that we should move away, like we didn't really figure that out for ourselves.

So I led out up Grotpetter. Keeping a respectable gap, getting ready to crest the roller coaster climb. I can usually recover here, staying out of the saddle, then recover on the sweeping switchbacks, repeat. I was feeling pretty good and, when coming out of roller coaster, looked back to find that I had put a 5 yard gap on the old guy. Well, this was good, because I knew that the Love decent was all mine. I held 98% all the way down, damn near exemplary maneuvering, if you ask me. Except for the last 100 feet, I went high and didn't make the cut. I was thrown over the bike and almost saved it. dismounting on the left and staying clipped in, then falling backwards over the bike in to a tree. I am a bloody piece of hamburger poundage. I didn't get the neck pain until later last night. But you know what? I am going to ride it off. Today, like any other day. I havent fallen in a while. It was just Saturday when we rolled up on Kurt Fletcher and Terrance Keenen, a couple very distingquished roadies, washing the blood off their wounds, each had fallen in different spots that day. I was thinking, they should get "off road" more often, and they wouldnt fall like that. I guess Karma took care of that for me. I was standing at the same spigot, washing the blood off, less than 24 hours later.

Word.