Okay, so the mechanic is me.
Dusted off my 20 inch today (literally) and headed out to the local "park". It consists of a fun box, about 5' high and a quarter pipe about the same size. All these things are 8' wide. Not a lot of room to work with for a rusty old fart.
Anyway, I was getting back in the swing of things a little. I was doing my old stand by stuff which basically consists of disasters and fakie/180's and a few little variations on those. Not much to grind on these ramps since only one has coping and that's the 8' wide quarter pipe.
My buddy Kyle was riding for the first time ever and we were just getting some of the rust off.
I started working on trying a small line that, if I could get it right, would be about the only thing there where you could do two things in a row. I was thinking of hipping from one tranny of the fun box to the one 90 degrees to the left. That one is lined right up with the quarter pipe forming kind of a half-pipe set up. I wasn't up for flying over the hip, so I was lining it up and riding the line I wanted to fly over, then down and up the quarter pipe to a double peg stall, then dropping back in off the quarter pipe. It was working and I was actually contemplating starting to get some air over the hip, but decided to keep doing it the way I was for a while. Probably a wise choice, in retrospect.
One time I came up one side of the fun box, across the corner and down the other transition. I was lined up badly for the quarter pipe...way to the right...I told you there wasn't a lot of room to work with (for me). No problem. I just reached for the brake lever and put my weight back to slow down and stop part way up the quarter...maybe do a fakie back down and make it look like I did it on purpose. THAT's when it happened. I squeezed the lever and that's when everything came together in a perfect storm. I squeezed and leaned back a little and at the same time and I felt a *tink* and realized that my brake cable had just snapped. Not even a tiny bit of braking took place. With my weight still shifting back over the rear a little, I hit the bottom of the transition perfectly. The bike accelerated, SHOT up and looped out BIG TIME. It happened so violently fast that I had no time to react, just time to think about how to land. No matter. I landed hard just off the very edge of the ramp onto the pavement. I might have hit the ramp a little, I don't know. I landed hard on my right hip/lower back. That's where it hurts the most. I also managed to smack my right hand and elbow and somehow I ended up with a major charlie-horse on my LEFT thigh. No idea how that happened.
I feel great that I took that hard of a fall and am just sore and limping (my wife chuckles....she knows, she knows). I know it'll be hard to get moving tomorrow morning for sure. But I'm still stoked to be riding again!
And I really want to hit that line.....
Dusted off my 20 inch today (literally) and headed out to the local "park". It consists of a fun box, about 5' high and a quarter pipe about the same size. All these things are 8' wide. Not a lot of room to work with for a rusty old fart.
Anyway, I was getting back in the swing of things a little. I was doing my old stand by stuff which basically consists of disasters and fakie/180's and a few little variations on those. Not much to grind on these ramps since only one has coping and that's the 8' wide quarter pipe.
My buddy Kyle was riding for the first time ever and we were just getting some of the rust off.
I started working on trying a small line that, if I could get it right, would be about the only thing there where you could do two things in a row. I was thinking of hipping from one tranny of the fun box to the one 90 degrees to the left. That one is lined right up with the quarter pipe forming kind of a half-pipe set up. I wasn't up for flying over the hip, so I was lining it up and riding the line I wanted to fly over, then down and up the quarter pipe to a double peg stall, then dropping back in off the quarter pipe. It was working and I was actually contemplating starting to get some air over the hip, but decided to keep doing it the way I was for a while. Probably a wise choice, in retrospect.
One time I came up one side of the fun box, across the corner and down the other transition. I was lined up badly for the quarter pipe...way to the right...I told you there wasn't a lot of room to work with (for me). No problem. I just reached for the brake lever and put my weight back to slow down and stop part way up the quarter...maybe do a fakie back down and make it look like I did it on purpose. THAT's when it happened. I squeezed the lever and that's when everything came together in a perfect storm. I squeezed and leaned back a little and at the same time and I felt a *tink* and realized that my brake cable had just snapped. Not even a tiny bit of braking took place. With my weight still shifting back over the rear a little, I hit the bottom of the transition perfectly. The bike accelerated, SHOT up and looped out BIG TIME. It happened so violently fast that I had no time to react, just time to think about how to land. No matter. I landed hard just off the very edge of the ramp onto the pavement. I might have hit the ramp a little, I don't know. I landed hard on my right hip/lower back. That's where it hurts the most. I also managed to smack my right hand and elbow and somehow I ended up with a major charlie-horse on my LEFT thigh. No idea how that happened.
I feel great that I took that hard of a fall and am just sore and limping (my wife chuckles....she knows, she knows). I know it'll be hard to get moving tomorrow morning for sure. But I'm still stoked to be riding again!
And I really want to hit that line.....
