Rolling down some of my favorite single track trail in the world with my niece and she asks me if I can jump the “bumps” with my drop bar bike. Of course I can but as the only adult for miles around I should have just left it at that… but oh no I have to go and show her that I’m not just her crazy aunt Juju who lives in the mountains and has lots of crazy stories that our family tells quite often, however she’s only actually seen a small amount of evidence that supports the facts… Long story longer, I just bled through my brand new Pendalton “oatmeal shade” bath towels that I was given (thanks mom!!) to take back to my place!!! And I already know what she’s going to say about it all to me tomorrow (actually today already!! 😣☹️🤬) … (Hay que mucho malo!! No bueno!! Que dice mi mal sueño!! Y mi dolor in mi espalda!!! Fml 🤦♀️!!!)
But what actually hurt me even more was that on the beginning of our return loop she was riding behind me and I never usually let her do that because I just feel better when she’s in my line of sight the whole entire time but she asked if she could and I said “sure” as I got a feeling that I couldn’t pin down but it wasn’t pleasant I had just enough time to process that and then 3-5 seconds later I heard that sound and I knew immediately!! Not good!! I was off my bike and had her in my grasp within milliseconds it seemed. She had “knocked the wind out of herself and she couldn’t tell me anything but I knew. She had been watching me and not watching the trail and her front wheel had slipped off the packed single-track and into the loose mulch which caused her front wheel to rotate her handlebars right out of her grip and her momentum caused her to hit her chest on the handlebar grip that was 135 degrees from where it should have been. I felt awful about it. It’s not the first time she’s crashed while riding with me and I really expected her to be a lot more upset as I held her up and she regained her normal breathing. I asked her if she wanted to rest more and if she wanted me to call my parents for a trailside emergency ride but she said that she didn’t want to end the ride yet she just wanted to start making our way back to home base directly. I often set up routes with options for the “long way back home” etc. She wasn’t trying to tough it out for show or anything to impress me (which is good and always has been a concern of mine) she just remounted her little bike
and we were back on (single)-track and it wasn’t until we got back home that she showed anyb signs of being in pain. She hugged a small pillow for the remainder of the evening and by bedtime she was able to allow some Neosporin for the scrape. I’m so glad that I built her bike up with some pink extra soft grips with a large flare at the end of the grip which most likely helped distribute and dissipate the force from her rapid deceleration and awkward impact. Tomorrow we shall see what her mamma thinks but I already explained to her by phone that it was really quite impressive how she was able to put her focus back into her remaining length of trail and she didn’t even want me to get my ⛑️ FirstAid 🩹 kit out !! I was not as lucky with my own incident…
I tore a hole in my brand new cargo bibs and I wasn’t wearing any “baggy” over shorts 🩳 because I couldn’t be bothered to find a pair that I thought would look just right with my new camo road helmet 🪖(#BELL XR SPHERICAL)
I wish my suspension fork would just arrive by now !!! I also wish I could have gotten the lilac color for my frame but that’s just life and I will find ways to personalize it to make it look like it is my own. Already thinking about a black S and C interlocking like this SF that a certain baseball team uses…
Currently mine looks like this 👆 but soon it will have some front squish in the form of a little bit of fork travel like this one 👇
I’m thinking about ways to superimpose this but an SC not SF(although I used to live there too!! once, actually twice in my past, fun times good memories!!) I think it could work… orange and camo look great together in my eyes…
Love this sea foam color too…
But the lilac is my favorite 😍!!
I’m considering making it a flat-bar bike but that’s kinda boring and not affordable lol but nothing about my bike-aholic problem is ever affordable lol. I know it’s definitely made potential partners think twice before they get involved. But if they are bike-aholics too it’s fantastic!! Lol oh well lol I’ve been this way since my teens when the mtn bike boom started and the covid19 pandemic resurgence in the popularity of the bike people population increase has been interesting to say the least… two wheels for life for me!! I’d prefer to have the benefits of too many bikes and not have the luxury of having many other things people seem to desire and enjoy over-consuming!!
