Disaster

P.S. Just took some snapshots of the computer screen to get these on here. Makes the video a little more tense knowing what I'm trying to wrench back into place. I'm an idiot.

P.S.S - yes, I'm aware my left pinkie may look as bad as the ring finger in the video. It's just fine. It was a dislocation, and also a field repair during a high school football game. First time I've seen an x-ray picture of it and will now admit maybe my alignment might have been a little off.

Started the video camera thinking I may get footage of a cool "in the field" repair of a dislocation. Ended up getting a four/five minute documentary of leadville hopes and ambitions dying on my last hard effort training ride before the race next week. Desperate wrenching on that hand, trying to stay positive in believing I could work it back to being right. Was still thinking it was 50/50 going into the hospital that it would just be a quick jerk on it by the doc to fix it. He knew the second he looked at it, and I was crushed when I saw the x-ray (tried to post it but can't get it off the cd they sent with me). Doc threw a temp. cast on and told me to see a hand guy to get it fixed right, so going to try and get into the TOSH folks first thing in the morning. Think it's more desperation than reality, but holding onto a sliver of hope that they can put some hardware in that would make it stable enough to race saturday. I still can't believe this happened. It's the bone that goes from my ring finger knuckle to the wrist, sheared in half on probably the least violent crash I've ever had.

Sketchy

I've now ridden two races on my tubular wheels/tires. First race I was a little sketched out due to it being my first time gluing tubular tires, along with some questions out there regarding the tufo glue tape's compatibility with continental's tires, which is what I've got set up. Typical questions in the back of your mind - did I do it right, will it hold? It did.

Second race I didn't even think about it - out of sight, out of mind. Then I see this....

Perhaps more impressive than the crash is the leader's save, those track bikes aren't the most nimble breed of bike when they get sideways, he rode out of it - although he does look scared - or maybe just a little violated by his top tube.

I may relegate the tubulars to rides that go in a straight line and cyclocross - not to keen of the idea of having my tire wrapped around my foot/pedal after rolling it, nor of having my clothes ripped half way off by asphalt.

Photo Source - Casey Gibson gallery from Velonews.com

Snakebitten

That's what day 2 of last weeks St. George trip was.

Brandon got us to Springdale safely late friday night after white knuckling it through the snowstorm in the big Expedition. I decided on the way down to opt for volume out near Zions with the conmen on Saturday vs. intensity at the race in St. George, where Rick and Sam laid down an early season message that they're to be reckoned this year in the single speed category. We met the doc and rode Jem/Rim/Gould Saturday morning - Jem was fast and we had a riot ripping the 1 track back to the parking lot. It had been a good pace all day, but something about Jem makes you open the throttle - and the yelps let you know when someone hit the section where the trail drops out from under you. There was a hairless sasquatch sighting at the end of the trail - he briefly appeared on a bike coming around the last corner - but quickly retreated when he saw a larger than expected crowd near the cars.

Finished the day with a jaunt around Slickrock Swamp - great trail to wind down and play on, but we looked more like a train of zombies than kids on a playground by the time we got to the slickrock - we were pretty spent. The only rubs anyone had on day one was Tyler getting a cramp in his calf early in the morning, and Brandon feeling the bolts of his new shoes on the bottom of his foot all day - that had to be comfortable.

Tyler educated us on the virtues of backcountry skiing over breakfast the next morning before the ride. On the docket for day 2 - Gooseberry Mesa, and an uncanny series of mishaps. The day actually started off with a little luck - we were meeting up with the doc again who was coming from St. George - and it just so happened that both parties arrived within 3 minutes of each other, about 45 minutes later than the agreed upon meeting time with no cell reception to let the other know we were running late - so chalk one up for the win column right off the bat.

About 30 minutes later, the snakebites started. I think it started with me. Nothing spectacular, standard faceplant into one of the short steep ascents up one of the slickrock walls. Tyler and Erik I think are the ones who saw it, and because there were witnesses, I got up doing the post crash fake laugh thing, surveyed the damage/showed off the severe rockrash on my right arm which had added flare with all the blood, remounted, and tried to get a moment to myself to weep and scream f bombs in my head to counter the fire shooting out of the rock rash and the sprain I knew I'd put in my left wrist when trying to prevent getting a little rockrash on my face. The face was saved (no matter of opinion jokes - Annie) but at the expense of the wrist which is just starting to feel better 8 days later. May do a post on what to do with rock/road rash scabs - or any scabs for that matter. What to do with that layer of skin crust has been a source of much discussion around my house this week, with wife and kids all having their input. I'm a picker.

The next strike was on Banks - who somehow managed to break one of his eggbeater pedals. The pros of eggbeater pedals? Their light, simple design makes them a nice pedal for the minimalist. They're hands down the most popular pedal with the folks I ride with here in Suncrest, and I converted to them for cyclocross last season. Here's the con - depending on where your at on Gooseberry when that thing breaks, the lack of any type of platform on that pedal means you may very well have a long walk to the road before you can get back on the bike and limp it down the road. Brandon's walk wasn't real long, but he made it a little longer when he crashed on the way back to the road. Should mention that he crashed while walking the bike, not while riding it - talk about insult to injury - or, because the walking crash drew blood, maybe injury to insult?

The two Eric/k's and Erik's buddy Tyler and I took the hidden valley route back to the jeep road and headed back to the cars to meet back up with Brandon and Tyler after fixing the pedal problem (Erik R. happened to have an extra bike with the remedy, flats and pedal cages). If you've got to bail from the good stuff on Gooseberry, that jeep road is actually a fun descent - not nearly as good as the trail, but certainly not the suckiest bailout route that ever sucked. We were having fun bouncing around on the little rock jumps, etc... down the jeep road when I hit a rock and my rear tire let out a big belch. It was loud, and it was a lot of air. I ride a tubeless setup, and it seemed to seal right up and I was able to make it back to the car to top it off at the air pump. We regrouped, made a few jokes about the guy with one eggbeater pedal and one rat cage, and were off again for more of Gooseberry's classic trail. The happiness lasted maybe another 30 minutes, when I downshift for yet another quick/steep push up a rock, and my drivetrain locks up. I manage to get off instead of fall off, and start the delicate surgery of extracting my rear deraileur from my spokes, which is where it ended up after my chain apparently dropped off the inside of my cassette. To my surprise, the surgery actually went pretty well, and I lived to ride another day, or another couple hundred yards. The belching rear tire wasn't holding air.

But - not to be outdone - Banks wasn't content with breaking just one pedal in a day, so he went for the two bagger. Yep - he snapped the spring in both eggbeater pedals in one day. Come on, seriously - I'm still new to the scene, but I'm guessing the number of people who can claim they've done that can be counted on one hand.

So when we got back to the jeep road, I volunteered to take my slow leaking tire and attitude back to the car with Banks, along with Erik and Tyler from Cedar City who had to get back to wives and kids to finish their family vacation time. And just to top off the theme of the day, I rolled the back tire enough to burp it completely flat on the ride back down the jeep road, and ended up hoofing it the last half mile. The Zeph and Tyler finished the trail, we loaded up, and I put my seat belt on extra tight, and wrote a farewell note to my family, certain that we'd be gobbled up by the first avalanche ever to happen on Gooseberry Mesa on our drive down the hill. It doesn't matter that there was no snow or slopes, it was that kind of day. It says a lot about your friends when you look back on that kind of crap and remember it as fun, or at least funny.

Yep - I'm one smooth cat

Late post tonight, Tony and Shannan scored $500 courtside tickets to the Jazz vs. Raptors game which was being aired on ESPN so it started late. OK, I'm exaggerating on the ticket price, they were only $477 a pop. Whole different animal watching from down there vs. the seats I'm willing to pony up for, and instead of the $3.00 hotdogs we were fed like kings both pregame and at halftime - on the house with those tickets. Annie and I had a blast, thanks Tony!

Couple of random items:

1 - I've been buying back into the market slowly since October, some days feel smart, some days feel like I'm rolling the dice poorly with cash I should be more careful with. But, I'm optimistic that I'm gonna pay for my kids college education with a relatively small cash outlay over the next year. Does this economy suck, yep, and I work in an industry that's ground zero for the mess. But really, I'm serious in that I think I can get the 800 pound monkey of expensive tuition off my back with just a little dry powder being used in the near future. And if it continues to go the other way, well, dry powder probably ain't gonna matter a whole lot then anyway.

2 - Here's the smooth cat story. I got new tires for the cross bike yesterday so took it for a spin at lunch today over at the draper course where the race will be held tomorrow/this morning. It's at the equestrian center so it's common to see a few horsetrailers in the parking lot as the cyclists share the phenomenal corner canyon trail system with the folks riding horses. I grew up on a cattle ranch so happen to have a built in fondness for horse folks, mostly because I is one. So, the events leading up to my smoothness were entirely natural. It starts when I come around the fast corner on the pavement on the easternmost section of the course - the corner straightens out and transitions from the blacktop to a loose gravel/dirt surface. I come around the corner pretty fast, and there's a gal - late 40's/early 50's coming across the parking lot with two horses. It's not what you think - there was plenty of distance. I didn't spook her or her horses and cause a big wreck there, nor did they spook me - it was a very controlled and warm encounter as we made eye contact and acknowledged each other. And being the gracious people that most horse folks are, she followed the eye contact with a wave. This is where it got a little ackward. I'm still going pretty fast, on an uneven gravel surface. So when I sit up, pull a hand off the bars to wave back, and hit a hole with my front tire, I have absolutely no shot at recovering. I can save some pretty out of control situations on a bike, but no way it was happening here. Right smack in the middle of my hi, it's a beautiful December afternoon, parade style wave, I go down - hard! And then skid for a bit. I get up, dust myself off, and this nice woman proceeds to take some responsibility for the incident by apologizing to me for waving. I fake laugh to hide the pain grimaces, and explain that it's my first ride since taking the training wheels off, and that I need more practice before attempting advanced tricks like waving with only one hand on the bars.

She makes sure I'm alright, I make sure she retracts her apology, and we go back to what we were doing before the ridiculous afternoon drama. I ride off absolutley baffled at how she could keep her composure and not fold over laughing after seeing that. So a bit later I've got a couple of more laps in and am coming up to the crest of the little climb up the road just as she's pulling out of the parking lot. She waves again. I look at her, look down, brake until I come to a stop, put a foot down, and then take a hand off and wave back. She finally gives in a cracks up.

Stackin it... Flashback to Cyclocross race #8

I mentioned after the cross race at the Weber Fairgrounds that I'd stacked it going into the double log barrier and was halfway expecting to see some pretty humourous photos surface. That wreck, along with one of several from the previous weeks race at Wheeler stand out as the two that, were I a spectator, would have made me laugh the hardest and been the most fun to watch. Photos of the Weber spill haven't floated up yet, but yesterday a fellow cyclocrosser sent these over, which happened to be of the aforementioned highlight of the Wheeler race on a slow but slick corner that required more finesse than I had on this particular lap.

Yes, Cyclocross is so much fun that you're still happy and smiling when only 4 inches from touchdown with your face.

Most crashes involve getting up and looking around for where your bike landed. It saves a few seconds when your bike lands right on top of you...

and proceeds to roll off into a convenient position.....
like right back into your hands....
I managed to stay on for about 3 seconds and get down the hill before having to get back off and put my chain back on. Then back to the chase to try and repair the self inflicted damage.

Thanks to Mike Rossberg and his crew for the photo's! You've seen plenty of photo's of the 50% of the time I spend riding on top of my bike at these races, with these photo's, you now get a more legit look at how I spend the remaining 50% of the time and what I really look like racing cyclocross.

Utah Cyclocross State Championships

Jumping the double log barrier at the cyclocross race this weekend. Lucky for me, unlucky for you readers, Annie didn't get a photo sequence of the previous lap here. If you look closely in the first photo, you'll see what's become my trademark layer of dirt up my left leg. Coming into these logs I'd stepped my right leg over the seat and was ready to step off into a run with the left foot, only it didn't come unclipped. I've gained some confidence dismounting so had not slowed down much, and the gut reaction when I didn't come unclipped was to hit the deck instead of run head on into the logs - so I layed it down. While Annie didn't get it on camera - the CyclingUtah photographer was right there dialed in, so am hoping he had a glare on the lens or some other mishap.
I'd qualify my riding as average on Saturday, did some things well, still lot's to work on, including riding a clean race with limited self inflicted damage/time wasting mistakes. Thanks to Annie who is cool enough to let me race at the end of an overdue anniversary get away. Although I think I had earned some marriage capital by going to the Twilight movie with her the day before (ok movie, but it drew out some kooks!! there was a chick sitting next to Annie who seriously curled up into these creepy giggles every time Edward came on screen - full on Psyhco!) I told Annie I didn't feel like I was running on a full tank and she accepted full responsibility for it - despite the performance at the race, it was a pretty good weekend to be Jason.

Below is some brief footage from the C race, more footage from the B race including some carnage at the log and a really good finish with a late pass, and the A groups first pass over the log... the guys put on another great race and Fox was even out showing some love to the C's and B's handing out some cash and blasting his techno.