Crashing still sucks…

The title pretty much says it all, bouncing off the ground has not all of a sudden become awesome.  I would even be as bold as to say that when you do it less it seems to suck more.  Its not that I don’t chuck the KTM most times when I take it out, I do.  For the most part they are  low speed jump off the bike, riding it out into the weeds while hard on the brakes, or something of that like.  It has been a few years since I have done the out of control rag doll.  Before anyone worries too much, I am fine, a bit sore, but ok.  The KTM that I stuffed into the ground with myself is pretty much no worse for wear, there are some new stress marks on the front fender and headlight mask, but it is a dirt bike and I do not need to order any parts.  Now for what happened.

So this is what I think happened…  I was on wide singletrack (about 1-½’ wide path) and gassed it to loft the front wheel over a whoop type rut and didn’t give it enough gas.  The front wheel bounced off the top of the far side of the whoop instead of clearing it.  I am pretty sure this was the first piece of my demise.  Anyways that crossed my bars up a little, so when the front wheel came down with me still on the gas, possibly in power band still, the front end pushed a little.  I tried to stuff my right foot down to pop the bike back onto track, this didn’t feel to good, I guess stuff down a booted leg to right over four hundred pounds of bike and flesh doesn’t always work or make ones knee feel awesome.  Now with the KTM sliding out and dropping to the ground I find myself rodeo style with both feet off the pegs and my throttle hand ripped off the bar.  The front tire finds raised edge of where the trail ends and the woods start back up, the back end of the bike slides around a little bit as the rest of the moment dies.  In the split second that I am in the air getting ready to find the earth again I notice (and this stuck out in my mind afterward) that my throttle had is just sitting out by itself.  I pull my arm to my chest and shoulder check the ground, I don’t think the ground got out of my way.  From the failed lofting of the front wheel to laying on the ground probably only took a second or two, reading it takes a lot longer.  Laying on the ground with my KTM’s motor silent I hear the other two bikes I was riding with get farther away, everything hurts.  I take a moment and just lay there trying to mentally do a systems check.  For those of you who have not spent lots of time hurting yourself, pain right after impact is generally good, it means you are not in shock and nothing is hurt too bad.  After about thirty seconds my legs don’t hurt and my right side is feeling better.  After taking my helmet, goggles, and gloves off  I get the KTM back on her feet and off the trail.  My left forearm still isn’t feeling good, so I pace back in forth on the trail wiggling my wrist to see if I have lost any range of motion and feel for swelling.  Everything is pointing to me being sore for a while.  I hear the sound of my riding buddies heading my way, when they arrive I make the call to head back to the truck.  On the ride back out (dozen miles or so of trail) I take it a bit easier than I normally do and my arm doesn’t feel too bad, though it didn’t like lateral motion that much.  Otherwise the ride out was pretty drama free.

Now before anyone decides to be a smartass and bring up that crashing is part of dirt biking and I need to just suck it up, I know this and I am not griping here.  Like when anything goes awry it is always best to try to sort out what happened.  Times like these I just end up popping Advil while working it out.  I do find it interesting as well how hard it can be to work out what happened in the few second span of time that is a crash.  It makes sense that you would not remember every detail of a ride, the highlight reel normally is what sticks in your head, not the little rock that threw you to the ground.  I also have no doubt in my mind if the terrain had allowed me to ride into the trees on the right side I would not be writing any of this.  A few little things add up, you hit the ground, then all the little details get dragged out.