Mountain Biking Rat

Riley and I had about two and a half hours to kill on the mountain so we decided to make yet another mtb video. God knows my mtb videos are sooooo popular. They get literally hundred of hits on youtube. (sarcasm)



I bet if I got video of those girls in boyshorts that we saw earlier, the hits would go through the roof.

More Than the Ego

I swear, I must be one of the clumsiest mountain bike riders ever. Besides the numerous scratches and bruises, I've also managed to knock myself unconscious and got myself a trip to the ER. And this weekend I got to add yet another injury to the list.

It all started on Friday. Riley called me and asked if I could bring a truck over to pick up my bike. He normally transports our bikes himself since they're stored at his workplace. This time though, his friend was supposed to come with us on Saturday, which meant he needed to transport an extra bike.

His friend didn't show on Saturday. He showed up at my house with both of his Gary Fisher Kingfisher 2 freeride/downhill bikes. He told me to leave my Haro X6 at home and to ride one of his bikes.



The Kingfisher 2 has a suggested retail of over $2000. The one he let me ride had a $1300 Fox 40R fork on it.



Now Riley is a bit... um... tight. And anal. While the words "tight" and "anal" would have me giggling like a school girl, I was a bit apprehensive. I am known for crashing on the trails, and the thought of crashing this expensive bike had me worried. If I put a scratch on the bike, I wouldn't hear the end of it.

Luckily, most of the day went well. Even this one particular section that causes me grief was easily handled with the freeride bike. Things felt good.

Then on our second run of the day it happened. I crashed. I was following the same path as normal and did nothing out of the ordinary. I did not lock up the brakes. In fact, I had both hands off the brake levers. The front wheel did not lock up in a rut, nor did it wash out. The wheels did not lose traction and slide out. It just felt like something grabbed the back wheel and pulled the bike out from under me.

So the bike stopped forward momentum, while my body continued on. I know the bike stopped because when I got up, it was right where I left it. I don't think it suffered any damage since Riley did not call me. He wouldn't miss a new ding.

My body didn't fare so well.



As I felt the body leaving the bike, I swore to myself, then looked at my landing zone. I was going to land on some left over stumps from some cut down shrubs. The stumps looked like pungee sticks. I thought, "this is going to rip me open." Fortunately it didn't.

I got up and dusted myself off. I stuck a gloved hand under my jersey to check for blood. There was none, so I turned to see what caused my fall. The only thing different on the trail from before was a couple of three foot long, freshly cut branches. They were laying next to the rear tire of the bike. My best guess is that I may have gotten those branches stuck in the wheels.

Later that night I realized the injury was a lot larger. I added in the parts that you couldn't see in the picture.



To add insult to injury, my brother and I headed into town to return our bikes. We stopped by Borders Books to pick up some magazines.

Remember that pretty girl with the piercings? She was there again.



Yup yup. Macho Nonwheezer could only manage to watch her work and couldn't work up the courage to talk to her. Rawr! I'm a kitten in a lion's world.

Back in the Saddle

Where have I been? Welp, for a month, I haven't been riding my mountain bike in Waimea Canyon. Today was my first day in a month. It felt sketchy at first since I've knocked myself unconscious and ripped a chunk out of my chin, but in the end, it was a good exercise day.

I already showed the main features of our downhill rides in previous videos, so no point in showing them again. However, today we came across a newly built section of trail.

Here's a link to Riley's blog. I was the camera man.

MTB

Road to Recovery

It's Crash-Day +2. We got high wind warnings, so I'm staying off the motorcycle. It would be asking a bit much to ride with a hurt shoulder and bad weather. So I have nothing to do but play video games and watch YouTube.

These videos helped cheer me up. At least I'm not the only one who crashes.

Use a Condom, or Protection

Take it from Mozilla. Always use a condom. No wait. Make that, "always use protection." That should be less ambiguous for my two readers.

Today's secret word is: Protection.

As usual, I went mountain biking yesterday on the mountain. It's a great activity to help you keep fit and active, and to experience the great outdoors.



I pee on the trail too.

But mountain biking can be dangerous. You can wipe out on steep downhills. I've done it several times.



Or you could get your wheels stuck on some gnarly terrain. You can get up close and personal with the terrain you're riding on. I've done it before.



I took a really bad spill yesterday. I was going faster than I should have, on a section of trail I've never been on. Big mistake. The last thing I remember was my front wheel falling into a rut and me flying head-first toward the ground.



I think I actually went unconscious for a while. Notice that my being unconscious, and later being unable to get up, did not stop my so-called friend from taking time out to photograph the scene.

I woke up totally dazed with some memory loss and a jacked up shoulder.

The fun thing about suffering a memory-loss inducing head trauma is that the rest of the day feels brand new. Or better yet, the rest of my day felt like an old computer rpg. I was on a quest to figure out the events of the day. And just like those old rpgs, the npcs I talked to weren't very helpful and my chat interface sucked. I think I was babbling.

Nonwheezer: How did I fall?

Riley NPC: The Riley has nothing more to say.

Nonwheezer: How did I get down here?

Riley NPC: The Riley has nothing more to say.

Nonwheezer: Wow, you kind of suck.

Riley NPC: The Riley has nothing more to say.



Once I figured out that I indeed could not remember things, I decided I would use sheer brainpower to muscle through the problem. I figured since I was smarter than most, my brain kung-fu would come out victorious. It would be like using a Cray, or maybe NASA's supercomputer to balance a checkbook.



Turns out, it doesn't matter how big a computer you have. If the lights are out, you ain't figuring out shit. No matter how hard I tried, I still drew blanks.



Eventually, with time, most of my memories came back. However, there's still a thirty minute blank spot after the crash. Luckily my motor skills weren't damaged and I rode down the road to the lookout just fine. I just couldn't form any memories during that time. Weird yet cool.

At the lookout I was still in babble mode. I can remember bits and pieces here and there, but it felt like I was really drunk. I do remember this one nursing student friend who checked if I had a concussion.



When that memory came back, I was in awe. Honestly, I did not expect such skills from this student at this time. I figured she would need a couple more years of study to reach the level of nurse-fu I experienced. She greatly exceeded all expectations. I was ready to become her groupie. In my clouded head, she was one miracle shy of sainthood. I was really close to hero worship and I was already planning which of my students I would use for human sacrifices.



"Oh, I thought you were lying so I was just checking to see if you were bullshitting."

Hahaha! Reality hit me as hard as my head hit the trail. God, I must have really been out of it.

Right now it's about hour 22 of the 24 hour concussion watch. I haven't slept for more than three hours at a time, yet I feel alert and wide awake. My body hurts like hell though. I do need to thank Riley once again. He woke me up at 4:30 AM (farmers don't even wake this early) by sending me a pix message on my phone. I couldn't ignore it otherwise my phone would beep all night long.



Now I'm not sure what he was trying to say by sending me a pic of a Trek Session 7. I know he was trying to convince me to ditch my Haro X6 (with upgraded fork and brakes) and buy the Trek, but if he was trying to insinuate that a better bike would have prevented my fall, then he really needs to cut back on the pot. I was on a Session 77, and upgraded Session 7, when I fell.

Anyway, it's now the day after. My upper body hurts, and I probably can't ride my motorcycle even though it's a holiday weekend. On the bright side, I have an extra day to recover before having to face the evil spawns of Satan- my students.



Wear your helmet! Probably saved me from an ambulance ride to the hospital.

Kokee Bowl

You can't see it since I was holding the camera and no one could film it, but I hucked the whole bowl on my first try.

Longevity Brevity

One day at summer school, I approached a pretty girl who I only knew by name. I pressed my finger to her exposed midriff and said, "pudgy."



I survived, and she became my girlfriend. That was when I looked like this:



The other day I was talking to a pretty girl I know. I think I know her pretty well. I at least know her better than someone who only chats with her in cyberspace. (Teasing a friend here.) I told her, "you're getting fat," and also, "I noticed it in your ass."



It didn't go as well as the first time I tried that opening gambit. Not sure why. This time I look more like this:



I even wear funny hats too.

Thinking about it, I notice there are many things that change as you get older. One thing I learned is that modern girls don't know how to take a compliment. Also, as I get older, my balls shrink.

Not literally. I mean my risk tolerance has really gone down. Twelve years ago I was really into rollerblading. We used to skate through towns, schools, malls, wherever. We skated on benches, curbs, planters, walls, anything. We played roller hockey even though we didn't know how, and we used to slam each other good into the fence. We jumped down stairs and walls. We did 180s and 360s off of jumps. If it was 7 steps or lower, we did it without thinking. If it was higher, we did it with some thinking. I didn't mind getting road rash on my appendages.



Then the years went by. Now I seem to be like this major pussy. Little drops of about one to two feet scare me. The weird thing is that there should be no reason for my fear. I can handle the bike well enough that those little drops should pose no problem. Hell, I should be able to do drops like this one:



Instead, I get shaky doing little hucks like this fool here:



Perhaps it's a survival instinct. I know I don't heal as fast as a young, dumb, full of *bodily fluids* man anymore. Maybe it's my body's way of telling me that I really don't want to end up like this:



But it defies logic. I have crashed or injured myself almost every weekend we ride our bikes in the mountains. Fearing jumps and drops hasn't prevented me from getting hurt. It seems more like trying to chamois a car in the rain.

So what is it?

Probably the fact that I need to work on Mondays. When you're young and dumb, you never think about where you get your money from. When you have a career, you tend to think about keeping your job by not breaking your neck.



Actually, the most plausible explanation for the self-preservation would be to make sure I can live long enough to piss everyone off! HAHAHA!

KFM Playground Video

I ride mountain bikes.

A friend of mine started to ride XC after work for some crosstraining. He's a motorcross racer. Then it spread to my brother and his other coworkers. Eventually it reached me.

I had broken my stationary bike and purchased an elliptical trainer as a replacement. I was never happy with the elliptical. It seemed to work the smaller muscles of my legs rather than the larger thighs and glutes. I felt I was not getting the workout I used to get. So when my brother suggested I join them after work for some XC bicycling, I jumped at the chance.

I started off on my brother's old Trek 3900. It's a hardtail, which means there is no rear suspension. It's harder on the bumps, but with no shock absorber to absorb pedaling energy, it's an efficient bike. I soon wished for more though. I had dreams of being 10 again and hitting some big dirt jumps. I started looking into a full suspension bike of my own.

If you haven't priced mountain bikes, be prepared for some sticker shock. The bikes can easily run up to $4000-5000. And no, you cannot do with a Walmart special for $99. That's like buying a Yugo for NASCAR duties. Luckily, I found an entry-level Haro X6.

The X6 is a cheaper version of the X7, a decent mountain bike. What that means is that some of the parts are a cheaper, lower-end models. However, it sold for only $1000, which is cheap for real MTBs (mountain bikes). It's also an all-mountain type bike. It falls right in between the XC and Downhill archetypes of MTB. The XC bikes usually have about 4" of suspension travel and are built lighter for speed. The downhill bikes are more robust with 7-10" of travel. They're designed to descend mountains and hit anything in their way without stopping. They're also hard to pedal. The All-Mountain bikes fit right in between.

For the past several months, we've been going up the mountain for some real mountain biking. The trails we ride on include fast single-track action, log jumps, big drops, cliffs, etc. I have learned that people older than 18 should look twice before leaping.

Yes, I have crashed many times.

Now because fear and self-preservation beat my skill and technique, I relegated myself to the group's documenter. The added bonus of this is that I don't get to be infront of the cameras. This is a good thing. I'm so un-photogenic that my last pic was mistaken as evidence for Big Foot.

Enough gilding the lilly. Here is the result of our last two trips up the mountain. Yet another video by yours truly:



PS: I know the unintelligentsia won't see this because clicking links is too much of a bother, but I did crash yet again on this last trip. It was bad enough to knock the wind out of me for a few minutes, and now my shoulder is messed up.

PPS: For those that don't know, the unintelligentsia thrive on my mishaps.

The Weather and Processed Meats

If you're one of my three fans, you would have noticed that I haven't really written anything interesting lately. I'll have you know that I'm not dead yet, but I do feel nearly there.

For the past week I've been dealing with a strange odor at school. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the chilli for lunch, but it was still a discomfort. I've also been fighting a cold. When I get sick, I tend to act like a big baby.



Yeah, I basically cry and soil myself whenever I feel like it.

I've also been spending a lot of time learning how to use Windows Movie Maker. I guess I'm really trying to get my money's worth on the digital camcorder I bought. One of the movies I made this week is on my Sportbike Chronicle blog. I didn't like the first version, so I spent about 3 hours recording my runs in the mountain to make another version.

The other movie I made is another MTB movie. Riley is an attention whore, so he asked me to film him while we did our afternoon rides.



Here's the video.



On Saturday, the Kauai Freeride Mob went out riding again. I was hoping to get through the day without any riding since I spent the whole night before blowing my nose and coughing up muccus. I was wrong. I got away with only making one run though. It was pretty tough. I was gasping and hurting. It was really hard to breathe. (See? Big baby.) I did get some nice footage and also got to test out the new helmet cam I got. Unfortunately the cam was pointing too far down, so I got about 20 minutes of Riley's front tire.



Today was a perfect example of how lucky I am. Not only did I have to ride a mountain bike at 2000 feet elevation while sick, but right in the middle of the ride, I get a call from a girl wanting to ride motorcycles. Sigh.

This was her:



This is what I was with all day:




This is what went riding on motorcycles: (Pic stolen, of course.)



Yeah, I was grumbling the whole time saying we needed:



Hehe. But truth be told, I was probably better off on the mtb today. It could have been dangerous to ride a sportbike fast when you're not 100%



I guess the big baby needs a hug.

Mountain Bike Video I Made

Being the cameraman, I get to stay out of the picture. It helps too since I look like a big orc.