Bike Handling Skills

Granted, this is a picture of a road bike accident, but it tells my story. My bike handling skills stink! I rode the mountain bike again tonight with a fellow rider, Steve O'Neal. I guess I could say I was tired, I was pushing too hard, or that it was the trail's fault. The bottom line is I'm not doing well in the bike handling department.

It manifested itself at Matson. I couldn't pick a line to save my life. Too much speed, too little or too much braking, poor overall positioning. Yes, the conditions were horrible at best, but they were the same conditions for every other racer.

I was hoping tonight would be different. It wasn't. In the course of our quick 75 minute ride at Castlewood, I punched the card 2 times. The first time was rather severe. While crossing a pseudo ditch, I wheelied to avoid bogging my front end down in the mud. The wheelie went fine, but as my rear wheel entered the ditch, my bike slid to the right. That slide caused my bike to lean severely to the left and track directly towards a trail marker constructed out of a 4x4 post. With no time to swerve or grab the brakes, I slammed directly into the post (luckily right at the face of my stem) and stopped like I'd just hit a wall. My bike was fine (you gotta love steel and aluminum.) My body however wasn't. My left inner thigh slammed into the stem and left a very nasty, 8-inch bruise. The only good outcome? My 'boys' were saved from serious damage. Try explaining that to the Mrs!

My second 'dabbing' was coming through the washout area on the way out of the Stinging Nettle trail. At the last climb out, I picked the wrong line (again) and almost fell 10 feet into the Meramec River. I saved it at the last minute, must to the disappointment of a couple of onlookers I'm sure. On Monday I tried another bad line in this area and it kept me from clearing this part of the trail, too.

Perhaps I'm tired. A lot has been going on at work. I just haven't ridden that much mountain bike in the last few months. All of these sound plausible, but they also sound like I need to ride more mountain bike. Pfoodman knows something about this. Just today, he told me in an email "the best bet is to train with those who do mountain biking." I know what I need to do, now it's time to do it.