Rockpile
Tucsonbikelawyer was vacationing/researching a case in the mountains of Colorado last week. The nice thing about this case is it required me to go to some very remote places that were not accessible by road. So I took my trusty mountain bike, a Surly Karate Monkey single-speed that I had the folks at Ordinary tune up just before the trip.
Trudging up a trail at about 11,000 feet near Salida, Colorado, I began to notice that I had stumbled upon some kind of mountain-biking destination spot. Dozens of lycra-clad mountain bikers were sailing down the trail at what I regarded to be insane speeds. Some were angered by my presence, and told me I was going “the wrong way.”
I eventually learned that most (if not all) of them had gotten rides up a paved road to a pass and were coasting back down the trail.
At one point I stopped for a rest and saw four people — four! — take over-the-handlebar spills. One looked pretty hurt and I could hardly believe the others were not also, given how fast they were going. I privately congratulated myself on my prudence and higher sense of caution, and worryingly surmised that crashes like that would probably put me in the hospital.
Well, reader, behold the rockpile I tumbled into a short two hours later, on my own descent down an old fire road:
You are going to need to click on that photo to appreciate it in its full glory.
I went right over the handlebars and down off the side of the road.
I somehow channeled myself as a 16 year-old member of the Ashland High Ski Team, and with cat-like reflexes* twisted in mid-air and landed on my hip and shoulder. I knew for a fact I was going to break my elbow, collar bone, shoulder, and hip before I even landed.
After an appropriate period of wailing and howling in which I was upside down and trapped on my back with my legs in the air like Gregor Samsa after he gets turned into a cockroach in Kafka’s Metamorphosis, I gradually began to realize that actually I seemed to be pretty much okay. I collected my rickety bag-of-bones body back up and rode, humiliated and sore, the rest of the way back to my camp.
Once at my camp though, the guy across the way came running over to me asking me if I knew what happened. It appears that somebody found his wife unconscious on the trail and had driven her to the hospital in Salida. I told him I didn’t know anything about it, but would watch his stuff for him, and he roared off to go find her.
About ten minutes after that a second guy comes up to me and asks to borrow my car. His friend took a fall on the way in and was now wandering around covered in blood and in a daze, with a concussion, a broken hand, and an open wound on his face that was exposing a good deal of bone.
And I thought: WTF is wrong with these people??? This is a dangerous sport!
–Erik Ryberg
*that would be “cat” as in “Caterpillar”
August 20th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Another reason to hate downhillers.
August 20th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Sounds like tourists riding the Monarch Crest. I would imagine riding one of the many trails that make up the Crest backwards would be like a salmon swimming upstream- many of the riders are more tourists than experienced backcountry riders…
There is a lot of amazing stuff out there, though. I’d check Absolute Bikes in Salida for maps and advice, and there is a great coffee shop next door.
August 20th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
[...] the problem of what to do with your helmet when you lock up your bike. The Tucson Bike Lawyer goes head over handlebars on a Colorado mountain bike run, but fares better than some of the others. A Florida cyclist is [...]
August 21st, 2009 at 7:43 am
Erik, I love your blog, but I had to chuckle a little that you found mountain biking dangerous when the subject of your blog often moves from one (road) bike fatality to another.
The best part about mountain biking is that you are in control of your fate. You crash – your fault. On the road there is so much (drivers) that is out of your control, and that is what scares me the most.
I’m a big fan of bike commuting, and ride to trails more often than not, but when given the choice, I’ll take my chances on the trails and avoid cars wherever possible.
Keep up the good work.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:08 am
Hi E, Check this out–
http://www.yourmtb.com/mountain-biking-crashes.html
Absolutely WTF! Good story. K
August 21st, 2009 at 9:22 am
That sounds almost ridiculously dangerous enough for Lauren to try it.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:31 am
Hell is other people.
August 21st, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Body armor, wear it, full face helmet, wear it! From the way you describe it, sounds like someone should be out there filming the darwin awards 24/7!
@Scott M. A crash on a mtn bike trail is not always one’s fault. What about equipment failure or malfunction due to shoddy manufacturing?
August 21st, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Tom–
True, you aren’t always in control of your destiny, but mountain biking is pretty darn close. Equipment failures are possible on the road, too, so it kinda cancels out in my mind.
I rode through the area Erik describes just a couple weeks ago. Some 40 of us were racing the length of the Colorado Trail (which includes some of the Monarch Crest). By far and away the most dangerous and most unpleasant part of that ~week-long ride was when we had to detour around wilderness, taking a highway.
Monarch Crest was like a soft padded candyland by comparison.
August 21st, 2009 at 5:22 pm
now that’s LIVIN’!!! sounds like a good trip, boss.
August 3rd, 2010 at 4:50 pm
[...] that my beloved Surly Karate Monkey mountain bike is badly in need of a front suspension. Last year on a similar trip I flew over the handlebars into a rockpile; this year that didn’t happen, but I nearly rattled my teeth loose and shook my eyeballs out [...]