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Postcard from: Salida (Monarch Pass ride)...

- Cool early morning start.

- This ride climbed above the tree line up to snow drifts. These are impossible to ride. We had to guess the best route across these that would take us safely to the rest of the trail. One of these had a 10ft vertical drop that we had to slide down. I had a rather ungraceful slide, but boy was it fun!

- This was by far the most difficult ride. The conditions on the trail ranged from shale, dusty dry trails, deep gutters, to river crossings and heavily forested pine groves.

- I had a bit of a tumble on this ride over the handlebars bumping my head and knocking my kneecap out of place (and quickly back into place as I stood up on it). I could not put my weight on it for a few minutes and horrible thoughts went through my mind about what would have happened if I couldn't ride any further. For a moment the pain was quite unbearable. Luckily the pain subsided into nothing worse than a major dead-leg as I hobbled onto our rest point.

- The bump to my head must have had some sort of effect on my sense of smell. We were in the middle of nowhere and I could smell freshly cooked blueberry muffins. It was weird and I was hungry and in pain.

- Rocks featured heavily on this ride. It's amazing that no matter how carefully you maneuver the front tire around a rock, you can be assured your back tire is going to collect it.

- My confidence was a little shaken and I managed to have a couple of further tumbles. I was not overly happy, but I could not deny that we were in some of the most remote and beautiful countryside and those thoughts thrilled me.

- The end of this ride was down an unsurfaced road that was badly corrugated from years of off-road traffic. That road was the WORST I have ever ridden on in my life.

2 comments:

yani said...

Damn... I cringe now every time I hear about somebody injuring their knee... I'm glad you didn't do any permanent damage though!

Anonymous said...

I love your new header!