I crashed….
I got a little too excited after getting my mountain bike in May. Once you start flying down a hill and jumping around, the fun factor is too addicting to think about slowing down. Unfortunately, the inevitable happened. To try to give reason to this unreasonable incident, here’s a little background.
I used to be mega into bikes, like super mega head deep into bikes. In high school, I was rocking a ponytail, ripping wheelies, working in a bike shop, and learning everything I could about bikes. There was time when I could see any mountain bike from 100m away and tell you the make, model, part specs and year. I was also pretty good at riding (if I may say so myself). After 3 years of freeriding and urban hucking, I switched to the specialized sport of bike trials and learnt the art of hopping around on the back wheel while jumping on and over everything.
The glory days, circa 2006
After high school, I left home in Victoria to go study music in Toronto and my bike was left sitting in my parent’s basement gathering dust. After a few years, I could no longer bare the sight of my underused riding machine and reluctantly sold her to another rider. Ironically, one of the big reasons why I sold my bike was because I was worried about getting hurt (hahaha….).
Fast forward 12 years and it’s spring in Whitehorse. Everyone around me can’t stop talking about how sweet the mountain biking is so I buy into the hype get myself a sporty looking hardtail. I start riding again and within days it feels like I’m right back to where I was in my teens. I’m learning all my old tricks again and I start riding with more confidence. I was effortlessly going off dirt jumps and big drops and riding harder than ever before. I felt invincible and 14 years old again!
Well, I’m sure everyone knows where this is going.
I made a mistake and bit off more than I could chew. I tried dropping off the first big feature on the Gnar Wall trail going way too slow and landed myself into an ambulance with a separated shoulder and some banged up ribs.
The worst part was that it was early June and I had now written off most of my summer. I ended up having two painful months of recovery with little ability to use my arm and ribs that hurt too much to play trumpet. Luckily, my bike was fine and most importantly nothing else was injured. I made good rehab progress and by August I was able to go on a few paddling and backpacking trips. Just a few days ago I even started biking and climbing again!
The ending of this story is that I now have a massive and permanent deformity on my left shoulder and some broken ideas about mountain biking. It’s hard to get stoked about a sport when it feels like it robbed you of a summer. Being unable to play trumpet, rock climb or hike was not a trade off I would have ever made. We’ll have to wait and see if this winter makes me forget enough to start sending it again ;-).