Man-down at Aliso

First off want to apologize to the guys for not being able to make the 9:00a.m. start time. I was extremely tired and then realized I had to go by my parents to pick up my riding gear and that would have been a 20 minute delay...anyhow, I made it to Canyon Vista's about 11:30, saw Rob's car with the rack on it.

Call it karma, but I left my arm protection in my truck and figured I have ridden 5Oaks enough to make it down without incident, WRONG!. As I rounded the kinda steep right hander and set up to make my way between the rock and the root on outside portion of the trail my left pedal snagged the root and I pulled a "kippie OTB", I felt like I was in slow motion as I began to realize that I was going to eat sh*t, not only that, but this is a pretty steep section and I remember thinking to myself as I was going OTB, "oh sh*t, my face is going to slam that next root about 5 feet down the trail. Sure enough I complete my endo and slam very hard on to that root and I came unclipped and continued to roll one more time and slammed my head hard into the dirt. At first I was slightly dazed and then when the dust settled, I noticed two gashes on underside of my right forearm about 5 inches long, both bleeding, an instant mouse appeared on my right elbow along with some road/dirt rash above my elbow and below it too. My left elbow is sporting some road/dirt rash too, as well as my right knee, just above it I think my pedal came down on me or something cause I have a nice bloody gash about 2 inches in diameter with a lump and my left knee also got cut. Oh yeah, a pretty long scrape is running from my wasteline about 1/2 way up my back along the right side too. From now on I will always wear my arm protection no matter how many times I've ridden a trail. If I was wearing it, only my knee's and back would be tore up, but now I feel like I've bruised my right arm/elbow severely and it hurt to put my bike in the back of my truck.

I cut my ride short and only did Rock-It after climbing Cholla, I didnt want to risk further injury by potentially eating sh*t on Lynx. Rock-It was in great shape, looks like someone did some trail maintenance on it. 5Oaks was almost back to its dusty/powdery self for the most part. Oh yeah, right before the steps section of Oaks I passed two kids sitting in the middle of the ST smoking some reefer and they had a shovel with them, kinda weird.

Hope you guys had a good ride, I'm assuming you did the usual shuttle loop, and I'm bummed I wasn't able to make it this morning.

[LBmtb]

Holy shit! That sounds insane. Luckily you were still able to not only keep going but ride a small Aliso loop. I bet the shower was extremely painful. Any pics?

No pix yet, I left my camera at my friends last night. I was fortunate enough to be able to continue to ride although my right arm was throbbing the entire time. I guess the good thing about riding "smaller parks" is that if you do eat it hard and are unable to continue, help isn't all that far away.

[CalEpic]

Sorry to hear about your tumble Dino. I laughed because the last time I rode 5 Oaks a couple weeks ago I did the same thing. I decided to leave my armor in the truck thinking "I never crash on this trail". Well, I just picked the last scab off my arm from the resulting OTB a few minutes ago. It happened when I momentarily looked down at my chainrings when my chain dropped and thats all it took to send me flying. To add insult to injury, my bike landed on top of me. I really need to get a chain guide and start wearing my armor more.

C

[TURNERob]

Yeah somebody needs to take a hacksaw to that tree root, it has claimed a few of us. I've been very fortunate to not get snagged by it yet (I credit the Pack's high bb height to that), but it seems like the rut is getting deeper. I was looking at the option of going to the far right of it and that looks quite gnarly also Wonder what all this rain is going to do to that rut??? You bring arm protection next time!!!!

As I sat and regained myself I was checking out the line to the very right, if you hug that turn and stay on the inside there is a rock that you can probably easily roll down as opposed to rolling the dice by trying to maneuver between the root and the rock. I actually was so upset at the crash that I pulled and twisted the longer root of the cluster that nabbed me almost out and off the trail.

[Ladd Jasper]

Originally Posted by LBmtb

I bet the shower was extremely painful. Any pics?

Whoa. Gotta step in here. Please, no shower pics

Sorry to hear about the carnage, Dino. That effin' root surprises me every time (today was no exception), and usually throws me off-line just in time for the steeps that follow--even wound up in the barbed wire fence at the bottom once. Glad you ripped the bastage out!

Heal fast, and hope to see you next week.

[~ Pakiha ~]

My empathy is with you DINO. hope your not too messed up. I bet your thinkin a 6am Loop run wouldn't have been so bad now.

[Epic_Mtn_Biker]

Sorry to hear about your spill, DINO. good thing you were able to ride out, hope you're on the saddle soon

[ECOdork]

Glad to hear that you were OK enough to finish the run at Aliso...
At least this rain will be a good excuse to heal-up over the week.