Crashing While You Smile

Yesterday, we embarked on a series of shuttle rides in Downieville, CA. It has been some time (five + years?) since I've done the popular trails up there, so the experience was fresh for me. I wanted to refresh memory of the trails before the race. See our rides in Google Earth.

First run involved Sunrise > Butcher Ranch > Second Divide > First Divide. This was fun, but I took a nice endo when I wasn't paying attention the first time I tried the big rock outcropping on Butcher (I had success the second try). It was one of those surprise endos when you don't expect it and go down fast. The result was sizable bruise on my forearm :-(

Second run was Sunrise > Pauley Creek > Third Divide. Again, I took a stupid, very painful spill on Sunrise that left me cursing at myself. I managed to gouge my shin and slam my hip into the ground :-( Regardless, I tried to shake off the negative thoughts and keep focusing on having fun. We loved the Pauley Creek trail. Like everyone else who rides 3rd Divide, we believe we both set world speed records on this section of singletrack (actually, I hit 36MPH).

We ended up back home at 10PM very sore and tired. I spent Sunday nursing my wounds and puttering around the house, which is all I was good for after my crashes.