A Little Fall

Summer ends quickly in my world. Both in the Pac NW, and in the Brush Creek valley, August can’t seem to leave soon enough. The warm days of summer, if indeed there are any, are so rare that one must be fully present in them, or they disappear like the yearling deer bounding out of our back yard at the slightest tremor from the house.

Every since we lost our last dog, the deer have adopted our woods. Right now, there are two buddies who browse through every now and then. One has been with us for three summers now – he’s got three points on his antlers. The other, who may  be his half brother, has one growing antler on the left, and a shorter nubbin on the right. He looks to his older sibling for cues on where to go, what to eat, and when to leave. I never see them apart, and can only assume that they have strength in numbers. If this buddy plan will last through fall rutting season, I don’t know.

Tuesday, the day I left, was the last day of August, and the first real day of rain we’d had for a couple of months. The usual 55F, dripping forever rain, not enough to soak you in a minute, but surely enough to thoroughly drench anyone foolhardy enough to stay out camping for a long weekend. Arriving in Colorado, I encountered what must be the last day of the monsoon season, that time of year when southerly air flows bring tropical moisture in and create massive thunderheads and drenching afternoon storms. No rain yesterday here, but the clouds provided a sweet roller derby ride over the Divide.

Then this morning, the clouds had gone, and the temp fell down to 44F, but briskly rose with the full-throated sun. Just occasional little last gasp clouds, nothing to cool me off as I did my warm up ride from Snowmass Village down thru Woody Creek and Old Snowmass, on up the the twin climbs of Capitol and Snowmass Creeks, then back home again.

This is my favorite ride to start the Big Bike Week, but for some reason, I lost a little focus an hour into it. Coming down Lower River Road with no wind on the downhill yet, the Roaring Fork burbling gently on my left, I took a quick peek at my power meter – something I do every minute or so. But this time, when I looked up, I saw my front wheel was at the edge of the road, and heading towards the gravelly drop-off into the ditch separating River Rd from the Rio Grande Trail, five feet to my right.

Amidst a shower of curses, i tried vainly to move my hands quickly enough from the aero bars onto the bull horns, where I could actually steer. I saw I had no chance to brake and turn, that would only drop me flat into the ditch. My only hope was to ride at an angle two feet down, then back up through the sparse weeds and squirelly rocks. I made it down OK, but trying to get up the hill, at an angle, dropped me to the right.

More curses, as I knew now I was going down, and faced not only pain and ripped skin, but possibly an end to my ride or even my Big Training Week.

I ended up sliding, as usual, with my down-side hand and arm outstretched, rolling slowly to my back. I wanted desperately to avoid hitting right on the head of my femur (the point of my hip), as that disrupts both running and riding a LOT! I lay there, diagonally across the bike path, hoping that no one would come rumbling along, as I did not want to move. I didn’t even want to open my eyes. I waited until I was sure nothing was broken, and until my excitement had dissipated. Cursing, cursing still, I slowly sat up, and asked for a damage report.

A little blood on the outside of my right knee, and, oddly, on the inside of the right ankle (had I scraped a chain ring on the way out of the pedals?) There was a rip in my right arm warmer, and of course, some blood coming from the outside of the right elbow. I did not want to look there, as in the past I have taken deep CHUNKS of skin and sub cutaneous tissue out, gouges which took months to heal, and still are white and rigid with scar tissue. I hoped the arm warmer had protected the poor elbow enough to just leave a scrape, but feared for a giant goose egg there. And, for some odd reason, my shorts had a couple of holes on the front side of thigh, with no blood or pain there.

I sighed, slowly got up, grabbed my bike, and hobbled along the path to some shade by a small, short fence. There, I noticed a little stream, and walked over to rinse my hands. A couple of small blood spots there, but nothing actually bleeding. I wanted to get the blood off my calf, so I rinsed that a bit,without going to the spot where the actual tear was – I was worried about this being a pasture area, animal waste draining in here, and so on. All I did was smear the blood into the dust and sunscreen on my leg. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, a very good sign, and my arm warmer was not soaking with blood either, so I hoped for the best, and examined the bike. The chain was off, and stuck outside of the smallest cog. Wrenching that around, I tried to spin the wheel, but the brake jammed it tight.

Damn, I’d just spent 15 minutes this morning teasing the rear brake into the right position, and now I had to go through that all over again, with the dinky little Allen wrench I carry with me. Finally, I wrestled that into a free position (I won’t go into the details here, but I’m using my old wheel on the rear, which is seriously out of true,and can’t be straightened, as it has no adjustable spokes.

I mounted up, and rolled a few hundred meters on the path. I was almost at the junction with the Snowmass Creek Road, where I could rest waiting for the light across Hiway 82 to change, and then re-group in the park-and-ride.

After a quick swig of Perpetuum, and some adjustments to protect my elbow, I moved into the Snowmass and Capital Creek valleys. The ride ended up being just about the same time and effort level as last spring, and after I got home and washed up, I discovered that, really, my clothes got it worse than my skin. My hip was spared, nothing hurt too much, I just had a few spots of raw exposed skin to cover with band-aids. I almost went swimming, but realised that immersion and soaking were probably not going to help me heal, so I bagged that. I rested a bit, and late in the day, went back down to Woody Creek for a 45 minute run. I’m back in business after my little fall.

Since it’s not really worth showing my skin abrasions, here is a picture of the holes in my clothes.