revenge of the trees

seems like trees have it out for me this year. what did i do to them? too many tree forts in my youth?


me, RF and the Lucas were preriding the five-0 course at a leisurely pace on Sunday. we were around mile 33, finally getting to go fast downhill. my front der had been shifting poorly since the crash in Boone and so i was messing with getting into the big ring as i started descending a muddy forest road. not 30 seconds prior i said out loud, "watch for the ruts" because after doing the 5-0 course the past few years, i recalled a couple of the open sections had really deep ruts. so back to the action, as i look up from my bike, i see RF fish tailing around a greasy section to avoid a rut. i tried the same line but obviously had different results. i went into the rut and then right into the tree, square on my left shoulder. i recall thinking, get your head out of the way! i was stopped instantly and just dropped to the ground. i barely saw Ryan disappear around the turn so i yelled out for him. i sat on the side of the road assessing the damage as i waited for the adrenaline rush to pass. i tried lifting my arm. that didn't happen. something was wrong on the back side. i could feel something moving around oddly. i stood  up and yelled again. soon the guys were riding back up to me. i started to feel nauseous. RF said i was pale. so we sat down until it passed and then we discussed our options. 


i couldn't ride. i couldn't raise my arm at all. we had been following the course that we had recorded from last years race. luckily my 705 (which i won at this race 2 years ago) allowed us to zoom in and see service roads. we heard a car go by so we sent Lucas off to chase. no luck. he came back. we decided to start walking in the direction of our car. i said, "hopefully someone w/ a big truck will come by". 5 minutes later, our angels arrived; two locals out on a pleasure cruise in their big Ford pick up. they kindly drove us to our car at the point where the race goes into the trees. the drive itself took 15-20 minutes and woulda been a long ride back on the road and even longer walk.  not to mention crash time was around 5pm, so we were running out of daylight.


so luck was on our side at that point. we drove to the local campsite to clean off all of the mud and cow sh*t, got some quick food and made our way to the er in rapid, which was 45 min.  away. by the time we dropped off Luca's and figured out where the hospital was (Ryan's phone led us astray) it was around 9pm. of course it was busy as hell w/ screaming babies and whacked out old ladies. by about 10 pm i was taken into an examining room. they had to cut off my jersey to do Xrays b/c i couldn't move my arm. results showed a broken glenoid cavity (I've never heard of it either). non-operable. they put me in a immobilizer to keep my arm from moving and said to see an ortho in Omaha. I'll find out my future on wed. but my bike future is on hold for sure which is a tough nut to swallow. it was this exact weekend last year that i tore my knee open at the Laramie enduro, rendering me off the bike for the greater part of august. what the hell? at least then I had my wedding to keep me busy. for the next 8 weeks I'll be making up stuff to do. ho hum, but that's the risk we take doing this sport.


so hopefully I'll feel up to hanging out at the races this weekend. if you see me, no pats on the back, please!