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I have had a number of people complain, two to be exact, about being left off my “travel log” list, it isn't true.  I have not published a travel log for at least a year. The reason is, all of my trips have been really boring. I was in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago and even that was pretty boring. We went out and had a couple of nice dinners, stopped at a bar or two and of course at the Café du Monde to have some Beignets covered with powered sugar, which of course means that I was covered with powered sugar. I looked like a coke addict with white power all over my blue shirt. It was a pleasant trip but still rather mundane. I thought about making stuff up which involved hookers and high speed car chases but I'm not a very good fiction writer. I am a very good liar but not a good fiction writer.

I racked my brain about what I could write for my loyal fan base, both of them, and decided that I would write about trail riding, again. The first thing to understand is that this is an activity that I do alone. That is because; one I have no friends and two because my family, especially my son hates to do anything with me. I am not sure if I love to ride, I like to ride.  It lets me feel good about myself and the trails are pretty but if I wasn't trying to not be a big fat guy I am not sure if I would ride. I think it is because I fall over a lot. One of my friends, Mr Sears, of course how good of a friend can some one be when they make you call them Mr. Sears, once asked me how often I fell? I never really gave it much thought, but since I am a good liar I thought of the number of times I had told him about a fall multiplied that by two and then told him about once every other time. Since I ride about twice a week that means I fall about fifty time a year. I didn't give it too much more thought since I assumed as lies go that was a pretty good one. It was a good lie for a number of reasons; it was based in some kind of truth.   I ride alone so it is impossible for anyone to check, and finally Mr. Sears really doesn't care how often I fall he was just making conversation hoping I would get embarrassed, get off the phone and leave him alone.

I have ridden a couple of times with my son and I enjoy this for a couple of reasons, one it is fun to be out with him and the other is he has a great sound track.  He says "Ow" a lot.   We ride single track trails which is nirvana to bike riders but they are a bit more bumpy than a paved road.  Every time he hits a tree root, rock, depression, really anything fatter that a dime he says "Ow".   It is not that he is hurt but he wants credit for riding on the trails and if he didn't say "Ow, oWW, ow, OWW, Ow, ow, oowww, while he was riding I might mistakenly think he was having fun.  

That is not to say that I don't have my own sound track but mine sounds more like; " Unh, O, damn, O, O, O,         Sorry, Clear Back,         Geezz, Unh, O,     This is really going to hurt,   Oohh, Unh,   No thanks I'm Ok.   Poison Ivy, damn,   No, thanks, Once I get the chain back on I should be fine,    go on ahead."

I didn't give falling  much thought until I was riding the next Saturday and fell three times. The third fall was spectacular I went over the handle bars with one of my shoes still clipped into the pedal, did a full three sixty and landed in a patch of poison ivy. I was bleeding, bruised, and soon to be very itchy. Laying there in the poison ivy, which I have to say looking back on was a mistake, I thought, "You know I might have lied to Mr. Sears.  I bet I fall more than fifty times a year. I have fallen three times today and it is only the first day," so I started to keep score.

Day One: Three falls:
1^st cause by looking to the left while traveling toward the right, hit a tree, no damage to self or bike
2^nd caused by stopping at the edge of a gully, over shooting it a bit and rolling down the hill, no damage to self, tore bicycle pump off mounting
3^rd caused by going too fast off the edge of gully and locking front brakes, cuts on left leg, left arm, tore flesh between thumb and forefinger and a very bad case of poison ivy

Day Two: One fall:
When I was reaching down to scratch a wound on my left leg, tore the scab off, got blood on my hand which then made my hand slip off the brake allowing me to run into a tree, no additional damage to self, although I was bleeding again but I can not really count it, slight damage to bike which I corrected by putting the front tire between my legs and bending the handlebar back so it was straight.

Day Three (The following weekend) Four falls
1^st Squirrel ran out in front of me, hit my front tire, scared the heck out of me, and I ran into a tree as I looked back to see if it was hurt or was chasing me, no damage.
2^nd fell at the same damn place as the I did the week before, no damage unless you count being depressed.
3^rd made a turn too fast looked back to see if I dug out the trail with my back tire, which is bad, and then ran into a thorn bush, cut my right arm, no damage to bike.
4^th hit a PVC drainage pipe at an angle, the front tire slid out from under me, knocked the wind out of me and felt pretty stupid, no damage to the bike.

Day Four No Falls
It rained the night before so I didn't ride the trails.

Day Five (The next weekend) Two falls
1^st rode off to the side to let a couple of younger riders (in their twenties) come past me going the other way. The chain came off my bike when I down shifted and locked my brakes.  I didn't notice so right after they passed me I pushed down hard on my pedals to impress them with what an old man can do and since the chain was not connected anymore it just spun in place throwing me off balance and I kind of just fell over to the side still clipped into both pedals. The guys that I had just let pass almost fell from laughing so hard at me.
2^nd fell in the same damn place as I had on Day One and Day Three.

I guess it doesn't really matter about the rest of the falls they were about the same as the ones listed above. I no longer have anything mounted on the bike * since I have torn off three bike pumps, a rear view mirror, three lights, two reflectors, a water bottle and its holder. I fall on average about three times a weekend so I fall about 150 times a year. That seems like a lot but I like the quote by President Bush after he fell riding in Scotland  "By the way -- when you ride hard on a mountain bike, sometimes you fall, otherwise you're not riding hard." U.S. President George W. Bush at Gleneagles, Scotland on Wednesday the 6th of July 2005

 

* Editor's Note:  Mountain bikes normally don't have anything mounted on them since they are designed to be ridden along very narrow trails and anything mounted to them would be torn off.  The author is either a novice or is embellishing the story to make it funnier.

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