“Road Rash” courtesy of Settles Bridge skatepark and my lack of skills. This stupid thing hurt SO BAD last night, it was practically impossible to sleep. Little better today. The fun phase where it isn’t bleeding but oozing some kind of clear sticky liquid is pretty much wrapped up though. It’ll be a couple of days til the tasty scab phase.
Without a doubt today kind of sucked. Regardless, I never got mad or sad or even mildly annoyed. The tale is as follows…
After taking care of my morning errands, the beautiful weather mandated some seat time, so I decided to head over to Gainesville College Trail on the ‘Goose. Before this could happen though, I had to fix the rear flat, which was no big deal. No big deal except that I had to have a little fight with Ye Olde 17$ Avenir Pump, which for some reason decided that it would work fine for tubes that already had some air in them, but would not work for a tube that was totally empty. Strange, I know. But patience, and switching to a presta adapter, ended up getting the job done.
Once I got to the trail, it was evident that something was not the norm. There were several cops, and when I turned into the lot I almost creamed some SUV that was coming up the wrong side of the road. The cop that was standing there didn’t seem to have an issue with this, but if you ask me, Mr SUV deserved a ticket.
Apparently there was some sort of running event there earlier that day, and the cops and wrong way drivers were lingerers. There was also a line of like 13 port o potties right next to the path leading into the trail.
Since the running event was completed, it was ON for the ride, and so the ride began. Things were straight up squirrelly from the start. Just felt weird. Too much air in the tires, too much loose dirt, old tire on the front with no real traction to speak of…I was sliding and bouncing around with wreckless abandon. Felt very disconnected from the bike, and popping little jumps off roots and stuff just had no flow at all.
At this point in the ride, my legs were feeling okay though…made it up the first and non-climb climb (there are no -real- climbs at GCT) in the big ring without getting too winded. Then, it happened.
The First Blood Drawing Wreck of 2010
Aside from the trail rash, it was a thing of beauty. I had seen some article a zillion years ago about how when you crash, you can dissipate the energy of the fall smoothly by tucking and rolling instead of just smashing to the ground. So, that’s what I did…and it wasn’t really a conscious effort, I just sort of automatically did it. The reaction was automatically triggered by ultradeep programming from a zillion BMX crashes. Seriously, I could have made a “How To Crash” instructional video, it was that proper.
I’m just sayin.
On the downside, I would love to tell you about how the wreck was the result of going full tilt and carving some sick line around an off camber curve or something that would puddle the ladies undies, but it was actually much much the opposite. As I had said earlier, things were going way squirrelly, and there is a point in the trail with a slight rise that has a horizontal root going across the crest…I usually pop a little jump off it…but today my right hand pedal clipped it at the bottom of a pedal stroke, which threw me off balance just enough to send me OTB.
I stood up, brushed it off, laughed, because it seemed appropriate to do so, then got on to finish that lap, thinking that he worst was behind me. Everything about this ride HAS TO get better from here on out.
No major mishaps occurred on the remainder of lap 1. Lap two started without incident, and stayed relatively standard, albeit a little weak and still super squirrelly, for about the first 2/3rds of the way. I always do the first and second laps in opposite directions and this particular direction is what I consider the “slower” route.
Then it happened.
I was coming to a portion of the trail that has some “S” turn action. I carved into the turn at a very mediocre speed, and immediately felt the ass end of the bike sway outward in a very unnatural way. Kept going and carved through about two more sections which netted the same fishtailing type feel, so I hopped off to see wtf was going on.
Turns out I broke what I will call the “Pivot Bolt/Brearing Assembly”, or PBBA for short. In the pic you can see about a half inch of the shaft sticking out of the pivot assembly, which is normally flush with the bearing. In the other side, the which I couldn’t get a good pic of because the drivetrain is in the way, the bearing has completely disintegrated, and since the shaft has pushed through, it basically is just sitting there unrestrained, and has about in inch to an 1 to 1.5 inches of play in any direction. Needless to say, the ride was over. I have to give the old bike credit though, she didn’t make me walk. I was able to pedal back to the car, so long as I took it extremely slow, and took it way easy on the curves and downhills. One interesting thing I found, was that using the granny made the fishtailing MUCH worse. It made it happen when I was just pedaling in a straight line. Damn…Damn the man.
On the way back to the car, it was evident that this may be the death of the old Otero Super(tanker). I have already broken the rear triangle once, which Mongoose replaced under warranty, but I am really not thinking that they are going to replace this part under warranty, since it is actually subject to “wear”. We’ll see though…I will take it in and ask. Hell it may work out that they hook a brotha up! If they try to pull some kind of “we’ll float you the part but you’ll have to pay the labor” then I’ll try to get them to just give me the part and fix it myself. If the repair will cost parts and labor, and it’s more than say…$40…then my old friend will be disassembled and turned into a pile of spare parts, and the aluminum frame components will ceremoniously be taken to the recycling center or someplace where I can cash them in for loot.
Can you believe that by this point I actually still wasn’t pissed? I even suprised myself with that one. Why bother getting angry though? Now at least I know ONE bike I cannot take to Baltimore in November…at least at the moment.
The best part of the whole thing was when I got home. My folks had my 2 year old niece Kaiyah out running around the yard, and she made her way into our workshed. She heard me bugging out about the bike and started saying “I fix it” in that too cute to be real kind of way, then stumbled around looking for a tool so she could “fix it”. She found a rubber hammer, and proceeded to “I fix it” for Uncle Bob, by repeating the phrase over and over while clocking the pedal with the hamer. See, she loves old Uncle B and knows that even though it didn’t make me mad that the bike was broken today, it will surely bother me eventually when I start to miss my time in the woods…and when I think about the lootstack I am going to have to lay out to get this thing fixed or get another bike. Even if the bike never runs again, as far as I am concerned Kaiyah “I fix it” just fine…it was almost worth breaking jst to have that moment.
Don’t get me wrong, I feel kind of bad for Anthony Jackson. The video of him getting hit by a minivan is circulating the intertron, no doubt causing outrage from biketivists everywhere. Rightly so…the driver should have stopped.
BUT…
What the hell was Anthony thinking riding his bike right across the front of the pumps at a busy gas station? I mean, when the cops look at the security video, would they have found the driver totally at fault had he stopped? The answer to this question is complicated.
First there is the matter of the driver backing up before pulling forward. Does this indicate that he pulled forward aggressively because he was frustrated by not being able to back out? Secondly…watch the video…Anthony comes busting into frame out of nowhere, into a place where no one could be expected to be looking for a bicycle. In my opinion the fault should be equally shared up to this point in the accident. I think the driver being at completely at fault ONLY starts after he doesn’t stop, and drags Anthony along.
I guess what I am trying to say is that not every incident of a bike getting nailed by a driver is as simple as a driver being stupid. Circumstances alter cases. Of course the driver here should be prosecuted, but IF he had slammed on the brakes just after coming into contact with Anthony, should the fault lay entirely on him? Do you think that Anthony was riding irresponsibly at all?
How would you call it?
I bought the 03 Giant Modem from the guy down the street from me. It was in about the shape I expected. I had to have the guy tighten up the front cones. The wheels are a little bent…even though this guy has not one but TWO truing stands at his garage workshop. I think the lock nut on the crank bearings is stripped also…they were loose so I tightened them up, but the lock nut never seemed to -lock-. No biggie. It took me about 15 mins in the parking lot of the skatepark to get the thing rideable. It does have brand new tires.
Once I started riding it though, I decided it was money well spent. It carves nice and smooth…very responsive compared to the clunker GT. I haven’t tried anything real crazy on it yet…and I probably won’t…I just want to be able to pump and not have the bike actually absorb all the energy I put out.
On the upside…the guy had 3 pegs, two for the rear and one for the front…so I kind of got the bonus plan. On the downside, the guy tried to charge me tax. I told him I only brought the amount he listed in the ad. The guy just sort of sketches me out. On his web site he has a Barnetts Bicycle Institute logo, but I seriously doubt he ever really went there. Whatever…I knew what I was getting into and it worked out pretty much as expected.
So,…now I can start riding again. While I was at the skatepark tonight I never even touched the small bowl because it was too crowded, so I’ll prolly spend all my time there tomorrow morning.
IN X-GAMES NEWS…well, there isn’t any bikey news yet…but last night Danny Way almost became the first Mega Ramp death as he clipped the coping from 20ft out the flipped to flat bottom. It was pretty sick. What was even sicker was that he ended up getting up, and completing the rest of his runs…AND almost winning! Man, that guy is seriously insane. He could have just walked away and never took another run and no one would have lost respect for him, but to come back after that fall and almost win…whew…unbelievable.
I wonder if the wreck is on youtooooob yet? Of course it is…vid shows several different views of the incident
Yesterday I headed over to Addictive Cycles to pick up a tube for the ol GT Performer. While I was there Hodge sorted me out with an ancient used tire…in fact he handed me the whole wheel from some repair they must have done a zillion years ago…it was some sort of metal mag wheel! Crazy. I also got some new grips for the bike since the ones that were on there has ceasd to be a solid and were in some sort of gelatinous state…seriously. Sometime yesterday afternoon I got all this new stuff installed…
This morning I hit the park to “just scoot around and not do anything crazy”, which is actually exactly what happened. I did manage to finally drop in at the small non vert area…or ride in. I guess they call it dropping in, but to me riding parallel with the deck and sort of bunnyhopping in on an angle is different than dropping in. I guess thats because I come rom the 1779-1988 school of bmx trics or something. Bob Haro FTW2008!
While I was at the bowl, a quadruple of high school age kids meandered through the park, obviously on their way home from a night of being up to no good. They all wanted to try my bike, so I let ‘em. They quickly realized that it wasn’t as easy as it looked, but not before a few of them almost had some epic crashes. I only stayed for an hour, then came home to get ready for class.
I’m nowhere near ready to start trying tricks and such yet on the BMX. It feels SO small and sketchy. Also, I am still healing from my last wreck. When I say healing, I mean hat I still have a wound on my leg that didn’t quite break the skin enough to make iot bleed proper, so it just oozes this clear fluid which I suppose would be the stuff in the blod hat would make it coagulate. Plasma maybe? I dunno. It’s kind of gross. It does dry up, but since the non scab is like 8 inches long down my leg, it constantly keeps getting re-opened as the skin flexes. Wonderful.
I had fun at the park though, and it helped me get rid of al the stress school is causing me this quater.
Oh yeah, I think I am pretty much done with BSNYC. I’m done with smarm in general.
Took my 07 Otero Super out to the Performance I bought it from, which is a zillion miles away from my house. The whole way there I rehearsed the scenarios I expected to be met with when I rolled in and said I expected the cracked frame to be under warranty, but it turned out way different than I thought. The mechanic I talked to seemed to agree with me, and gave the impression that getting it fixed would be no problem. He said “uh, they may send you an 08 frame if they don’t have any 07 left, is that okay?”. I told him I’d be happy with them just replacing the actial section of the rear triangle that was damaged, OR a new frame…whatever. Secretely though I am hoping they send out an 08 frameset because I am pretty sure it will come with the front and rear triangles already connected with a shock that is a big upgrade to the one that came on the 07. As long as it gets fixed (for free) though I will be happy. Just as I was leaving the manager of the srevice dept came out to take a look at it, and couldn’t really dispute that there was indeed a warranty issue. I cleaned up the bike and straightened the big ring before I took it in. I can’t believe I was able to get that big ring straightened out…I did some serious bike mechanic ninja stuff to pull that one off. Tools used: two ball pen hammers and a bench grinder….yeah, a bench grinder.
So, now its a waiting game. They are supposed to call me after they fax of the paperwork to Mongoose and let me know what the situation is. The mechanic gave me the impression that warranty repairs get taken care of pretty easily these days, so I hope it works out well.
IN PAIN NEWS, its probably a good thing that I don’t have any bikes I can go to the skatepark with at the moment. I’m pretty battered. Turns out in addition to the throbbing painful road rash I got from thios mornings fall, I also actually banged my knee up pretty bad…more in a bruised and swolen way than a cut and bleeding way. Somehow I also did something to my let hand pinky finger, which is hard to bend.
Blah.
IN TV NEWS, I caught the CBS network coverage of Le Tour today, which was pretty much Le Snoozefest. I was really hoping that the summarization montages would get me hyped about the race, but the pieces were just not that good. I miss being able to watch the stages on Versus. Blah
IN MORE TV NEWS, I caught the Ohio stage of Mountain Dew Action Sports tour BMX park contest today, which was the absolute rinse. Mike Spinner pulled a QUADRUPLE TAILWHIP over a 14′ box jump. Absolutely sick. Then some due was trying to 900 or 1080 the same box from the other direction…first trick of his run…and he hit hard and smackd his face against the transistion. There was blood, and the medical personel had to help him off.
You guys are going to watch someone die on live TV at X-Games right? July 31 the coverage starts…fire up the TIVO and record snuff film history.
This morning I took the old busted ass GT Performer over to the skatepark to give the 20″ / BMX thing a try. It has been at least 15 years since I have bem on a BMX. I sawed off the seatpost so it would have a straight section and adjusted it really low. While I was installing a tube in the front wheel, I noticed a place where the wire bead had seperated from the sidewall of the tire which must have ben why it blew out last time. I figured I could get away with riding a little bit so long as I didn’t inflate the tire quite as much as last time.
Everything started out fine, in fact kind of fun even. Then after a few people arrived at the bowl, I was cruising across he flat heading for a wall when the front tire blew and I hit the ground, scraping up my OTHER leg with park rash, AND banging my head against the ground. I had JUST went to the car to get the helmet so luckliy I didn’t get hurt when my head hit.
I think I am going on the disabled list for a while…before I kill myself trying to have fun hahahaha
Well, as is par for the course with a road rash type injury, it looks worse now than it did when it happend. I have found (the hard way) that scraping/abrasion cuts tend to take about 6 hours or so to -develop-, as if they are some kind of photographic film or something. Following the initial development phase, there is the -expels a large amount of heat and makes it hard to sleep because you cannot find a position where it isn’t touching something- phase.
By day three the wound is pretty solid. About a week will go by before the -man this doesn’t hurt anymore, but it freakin itches and I can’t stop picking at it- stage.
I slept pretty much all day and into the night after cleaning the wound. Man, the peroxide BURNED when I put it on, but I think I am going to benefit from using it right away rather than waiting like I did last year. I just KNEW I wasn’t going to make it through the whole yar without getting hurt. Thankfully this isn’t really a bad injury,…more like an annoying one. I want to wear my old school Rector skateboard pads when I go to the park but I can’t find them. I was telling some dude at the park about the pads and how I haven’t even scuffed the bright white plastic cups, and he told me that there is a big market for retro skateboard safety gear on e-bay. I’m not married to those pads at all, and I’d sell them in a sec for something more modern…
