Two Wheel Blogs

I hooked up with a diverse group today for a nice medium length ride between the rain storms. The common thread among this group was the will to enjoy a ride. There may have been other similarities among the riders, but none were as evident as the drive to ride (decent weather opportunities are hard to find this year).

It was a fun time, and everyone seemed to get what they wanted from the ride. I was feeling decent for a change, so I rode among three of the more spirited riders and we shared the effort and lodged playful attacks for a portion of the ride.

I took a few long pulls and rode myself inside out. Then tried to recover while not loosing the wheel of the other riders. It sounds silly perhaps, but it seems to get me in shape quickly.

So I rode a long pull and tried to put the hurts to a few of my riding partners (knowing that they would return the favor shortly). Once I was done I tucked hard for a steep descent during which I hoped to recover. While crossing a bridge at the bottom of the hill I noticed the hard way that an expansion joint had grown since the last time I traversed the bridge.

I should back up a bit. I have always enjoyed working on my tuck form to descend faster and with less effort, but have done so at a dangerous cost (I have been dropping my chin too close to the stem during the tuck).

Yeah, I know, total fool move to let your stem bite you, but that is exactly what happened. I hit the bump of the expansion joint hard, up came my stem--hard--real hard. It caught my chin squarely and sent a pulse through my skull that really got my attention. I noticed a few miles later that the head-ringer also resulted in splitting my chin and a fair bit of swelling.

Others might have chosen not to share such a story. I am not really all that embarrassed by it though--I do a LOT of stupid things, and sometimes I even learn from them.

Oh yeah, and when I got home and finished getting cleaned up, I went back outside and here is what the street looked like...looks like I just barely managed to fit this ride in! One more lesson here: Never waste a good opportunity!

The second photo is how the street looked a short while later.

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