I love to mountainbike, One of the main reasons I moved to Seattle was the proximity to world-class trails. One of the nearest technical trails is Tiger Mountain. 45 minutes away, it rewards a long grind up fireroad with some sweet downhill singletrack. Very popular on weekends, it's virtually deserted on weekdays.

This is my current bike, a titanium Cove Hummer. It's claim to fame is that they've never had a return for a broken frame... instead of creating an extremely light whippy frame with butted Ti like most custom builders, Cove took advantage of the strengths of the material and made a tank of a bike that weighs no more than a standard frame. Since I actually cracked my previous full-suspension bike right in half, durability was high on my list.

It delivers. Tough bike, even with the abuse I put it through. Oh, I should mention, there's some damaged bodypart pics coming up. If you're sensitive, you probably....wait a minute, if you're sensitive you have no business being on this blog at all...go peruse the Disney website.

This is it...



So, last Friday, my riding bud and I go to run Tiger. We hit the top, the trail's in perfect condition, it was flowing so well, I was launching off the small jumps everywhere, barely landing before hitting another. We were both laughing out loud as we descended the technical sections. Sunny, beautiful, we'd arrived early and only encountered two other guys on the trail.

We hit the end of the first trail, and start to cruise the fireroad to the next trailhead. Loose gravel, but fairly well packed. There's a section where there's a speedy downhill, with a tight lefthander at the bottom, followed immediately by a short but steep lung buster of a climb. The key is to keep as much momentum as possible through the bottom, then drive up the uphill. It's our impromptu race point, as it's always a leg-burner to see who hits the top first.

I was in the lead, the downhill had a 2 foot wide "beaten path" where the loose gravel was pushed aside by prior traffic. Obviously the fast line, I was in top gear, pushing hard, guiding the bike in this narrow chute, when I got offline just a bit as I reached the bottom. The combination of speed, loose gravel, the compression of the suspension, and the need to get the bike turned left all combined to result in my washing out the front wheel and low-siding at high speed into the marbles.

My left knee took the first, biggest hit, I could feel my face and right arm getting pelted with the sharp-cornered gravel getting tossed up by my skidding tires. I skidded to rest, still on my left side. Everything was tingling, I took a quick inventory as my riding buddy pulled up... he'd had a front row seat.



I got up, shaking off the dust. My whole body was alive with adrenalin. We hung out for a bit, checked out the bike, then continued to finish the trail.

My riding buddy's a good man...he had a sterile surgical scrub in his truck, I rinsed and scrubbed the wound clean in the parking lot. Damage...??



As I descended the second part of the trail, I realized I must have hyperflexed my right wrist, as it was quickly attempting to imitate an overstuffed sausage. I'm a lucky guy though, some roadrash and a sprained wrist is a small price to pay to have crashed at that speed. The pics here are from the next day, post crash.

Here we are a few days later, I can move my wrist more everyday, but it's turning many pretty colors. The roadrash is itchy and uncomfortable, but healing. Such is the price I pay for the fun I love.

P.S. wear your gear guys, A helmet and gloves definately saved my palms and major facial roadrash. I would even have walked away rashfree if I'd decided to wear my arm and leg guards that day.