Guardian Angel

[Juan_Gear]

My best riding bud (wife) and I are in Santa Rosa riding Annandale State Park back in the day before they (fixed it, not~!) It had been a good day we had rode most of the park and are finishing off by coming down North Burma to the road. For those that don’t know Annie it can be Steep, Rocky and fast. Burma is all of that, Lu can keep my pace but prefers a gap so she can run clean even if if I do something stupid (what,huh)

There used to be a right sharp turn in the middle of a creek bed and the best line is right next to the water fall of the road. Something went way wrong, hit a rock wheel turns sideways I’m clipped in and going over the edge head first. Left leg comes out, I give it the leg whip and stop falling for a second just hang there not going down or not up.

Then someone grabs my jersey by the neck and yanks me up straight. As I stand across my bike I turn to say thanks and there is no one around just me and the forest. And here comes my girl skipping (used to ride a Zaskar and it was STIFF) with a big smile and ask why we’re stopping . So I tell her what just happened she looks at my neck and there is a big red welt where I was pulled up. She looks at me and and says with a big smile GUARDIAN ANGEL AND YOU NEED ONE BABE I’v seen ya ride!

Riding is life all else is waiting

[Bombardier]

Far out, mang…. really far out. So how far was the drop? 😮

I had a similar incident….

My wife has a similar habit of riding pace with me but at a distance. She’s a lot more cautious than I, and needs a good heads up on upcoming obstacles so she can plan her lines.

So we (I to be specific) were bombing straight down this kinda wide trail on a ridgeline. Not exactly the fall-line, but pretty damn close. And as we go, I’m yelling: “Roots!….. ledge on right!….. Steps!…… hairpin left!”.
Things were going pretty good, and I saw a nice straight and smooth section.
So I’m a maniac when it comes to stuff like that, and I started hammering. At the end of the straight there looked to me at that distance, a short ledge which were becoming pretty common.
So I’m doing damn near 25mph, Linz is starting to pick speed up too, and I hit that short ledge….

Which promptly turned into a pretty sizable 8ft set of steep stairs.

There was a small odd-shaped lip on the top step, I was really light on the front wheel, but the lip kicked my rear wheel out as I launched.
Linz heard me yell “****!”

I wouldn’t say it was a guardian angel or something, but was really surreal. My weight was a little too far forward. As I shifted back, I got the swinging wide rear tire back by kicking my left pedal a bit. Impact was coming up, and somehow managed to suck up the landing perfectly straight down my original line.
I skidded to a stop, and Linz saw the stairs and said “Hell No!”, and walked down them.
Looking back at the stairs, I don’t know how in the hell I managed to drop them, and how my XC bike managed to absorb that landing without bouncing me off.

[Juan_Gear]

Cool Where’s a camera when you need it.

I never ever TELL! a wife what to do, gotta value my sanity 😕 I yell clues like woodehoo if i’m ripping, HideyHo if it’s sketchy. Giggles and laughter if I might die any second. Kinda change it up now and again.

[jibmaster]

Man, hook me up with whatever you guys are smoking…
Had a great crash this morning.
I was riding a new line I had built several months ago called ‘The Dragon’.
Still haven’t cleaned it yet. I almost did this morning.
It’s a sweet singletrack that leads to a series of steep, behind the seat descents with some tight corners and hairball twists and turns. One of the last turns takes you over a log and you sort of have to bounce down and into the 90 degree turn to the left. After that, there is a STEEP right, sweeping turn into a straight. At the very end, it suddenly steepens and right before your eyes is a large boulder.
Just before the boulder is a dogleg turn to the left. If you screw this up, you will endo over the boulder for a good 10-15 feet of air.
I was trying to clean my new trail without lowering the seat… 😏

As I made the turn to the left, around the boulder, I managed to nail the seriously steep turn to the right and went far off-line and held on for several nano-seconds before going over the bars and tumbling into the loam. The bike and I did two flips and I hung on for dear life as the storm debri was closing in..
The chainrung gashed my left ankle, drawing some good amount of blood.
As I got up from my entaglement with the local flora and fauna and fungi, I noticed that if I had cleaned that last turn and rocketed into the steep exit, I would have been greeted be a thigh-thick tree crossing the trail, about 3 feet off the ground, right at the end. There is no time to stop before the end on this exit.
I was meant to wipe out…
I’ll try to get some pics up late this week.

[Fitch]

I won’t get all religious on anyone, but I’m a really spiritual guy. Part of this came about not from biking, but from rock climbing.

A few of my friends and I were bouldering at Rock House in West Brookfield, MA, and one of my idiot friends tried a wall that was far beyond our skill level. He ended up 40-50 feet up, completely drained and starting to lose his hold — no ropes, of course, with rocks all below us.

The guy outweighed me by at LEAST 50 pounds at the time, and somehow, with me standing on top of the ledge and him a few feet below it, I pulled him over the edge and we both collapsed on top of the rock. Anyone who knows basic physics knows that this was completely impossibly.

But it happened, and I appreciate life more because of it- hence my bike helmet with the sticker “Can’t fail – must live” 😎

[Chickbike]

"Juan_Gear" wrote

My best riding bud (wife) and I are in Santa Rosa riding Annandale State Park back in the day before they (fixed it, not~!) It had been a good day we had rode most of the park and are finishing off by coming down North Burma to the road. For those that don’t know Annie it can be Steep, Rocky and fast. Burma is all of that, Lu can keep my pace but prefers a gap so she can run clean even if if I do something stupid (what,huh)

There used to be a right sharp turn in the middle of a creek bed and the best line is right next to the water fall of the road. Something went way wrong, hit a rock wheel turns sideways I’m clipped in and going over the edge head first. Left leg comes out, I give it the leg whip and stop falling for a second just hang there not going down or not up.

Then someone grabs my jersey by the neck and yanks me up straight. As I stand across my bike I turn to say thanks and there is no one around just me and the forest. And here comes my girl skipping (used to ride a Zaskar and it was STIFF) with a big smile and ask why we’re stopping . So I tell her what just happened she looks at my neck and there is a big red welt where I was pulled up. She looks at me and and says with a big smile GUARDIAN ANGEL AND YOU NEED ONE BABE I’v seen ya ride!

Riding is life all else is waiting

You know, I haven’t been riding that long. Even so, I’ve seen some things that have me convinced that God is a mountain biker (or at least loves the sport). This is a prime example. 😃

Glad you’re okay!

[Author]

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