Hey y'all watch this...

I'm beginning to think I should change my screen name. After Sunday's ride, it seemed fitting that I should change it to something like the title of this post. I think my purpose of riding is starting to be humor for other participant in this sport. I know accidents, bumps, and bruises are pretty much inevitable along with flats, broken parts, and maintenance.

I'm hitting all of the above, but I think I'm hogging more than my fair share. Today was no exception to that rule. I even elicited a comment of "hey go first, you're more fun to watch." This was after my double gainer over the handlebars of my mountain bike before we even hit the singletrack. I was following the group up to the entrance to Denman's woods and prepared to hop the curb back onto the short section of pave trail. Not being the most adept at riding yet, I managed to misjudge the speed I was travelling at and pulled up way to early. Upon my front tire returning to earth, it was immediately confronted by the front of the curb. Apparently it was completely surprised by this turn of events and decided the best course of action would be to stop its forward momentum post haste. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't informed of this executive decision and haven't perfected instantaneous reversal of my own personal heft. I.E. I flipped my ass straight over the bars, landing head and should first onto the pavement. Apparently I hit with enough force that several riders in front cringed just from the noise.

Everyone stopped and returned to my wallowing about on the sidewalk to see if I was injured. After loosing a small stream of obscenities that really didn't do my current state of feelings justice. I regained my feet. Inspecting my helmet led to finding two cracks in it. Scratch another helmet for the season. I was all ready onto my second helmet after lawn darting straight into a tree last December. About the only redeeming quality is the ability to brag about cracking a helmet and that the current model I have is on clearance. I'm debating about buying a stock of them...

As of this writing, I'm feeling a little banged and bruised. Strangely enough, my head appears to be hard enough to not be affected in the least. My wife won't be surprised by that fact. However, my shoulder took a nasty hit and currently has a chunk of road rash on top of my shoulder blade. My jersey wasn't damaged in the least, but I somehow managed a nice welt and rash. I also managed to take a couple small bites out of my achilles apparently from a rogue pedal seeking revenge at the same time.

The rest of our ride was mostly uneventful, but enjoyable. I took one small spill attempting a log climb as my rear tire spun out. There were some icy spots on the trail, some new routing due to recent flooding, and the ground was spongy sucking a lot of energy to ride through.