So, here I am sitting in my chair with a back ache that has been persistent for the last two weeks and a cold that won't seem to go away...... all because I've been mountain biking just about every day for the last 7 weeks. Now you may say that doesn't sound much like much but trust me, my hobbies have tried to kill me numerous times. We'll start with skiing..... It's an absolute miracle that I haven't sustained any serious bodily harm in the thirty odd years that I have enjoyed the sport. I've collided with trees, logs, stumps and even been run over by more than one snowboarder. I've crashed so hard (underneath the chairlift for all to see of course) that my hat, gloves, goggles, poles and skis were strewn about in a pattern most commonly found after a plane crash. One time I wrecked and both skis came per standard operating procedure, I turned uphill to see where both could be found only to see one at the scene of the crash. Not two seconds later did I hear a large THWANG downslope from me. I turned to see my other ski sticking straight up out of the snow like a telephone pole. I'm sure you are thinking that I must really suck at skiing, this is not the case, I may not be hiking up huge cliff faces to ski down 60 degree spines in Alaska, but I can handle double black diamonds pretty well. Two years ago I crashed so hard that I split the lense in my goggles. The good news is that my two years on Kauai completely ruined my tolerance for winter so I no longer ski.
Kauai brought a new sport into the fold, bodyboarding (boogie boarding for those not serious about it). Once I figured out how ride across a wave and got tubed for the first time, I was in love. It wasn't long before I was riding all the local breaks (the kind that kill tourists), it should be noted that these breaks are not sand bottom, they are rock or coral bottom. Once I was happily riding across a wave when a dumbass tourist with his back to the surf appeared directly in my path. It was either bail or hit this guy head on..... so I bailed and smashed my forehead on the bottom. One ER visit later with a CT scan showed no permanent damage to my brilliance. However, my forehead was severely swollen from blood leakage sustained from the impact, which promptly drained downward giving me two of the blackest eyes you can possible imagine. About six months later I was riding at the same beach, the surf was really aggressive that day and it was no place for novices. I watched this tourist take 3 waves on his head (how he didn't hit the bottom is a miracle), deciding to do him a favor, I told him that this was no place for someone who didn't know what they were doing. He thanked me and headed for shore as I paddled back out to await the next set of waves. Sure enough a great set rolled in and I grabbed the first wave. Thinking I was cool, I decided to do a roll off the wave..... and promptly went straight down and smashed my head on the rock. How I stayed conscious is a miracle and I made my way to the surface. I was dazed to say the very least.....too dazed to notice all the locals frantically paddling in for shore. One local was nice enough to yell "Eh Brah, you got blood all over the side of your head!". This was the reason for all of the frantic paddling for shore, I was chumming the water and no one wanted to be shark bait that day. Ten stitches and an eventual infection later, I was back out in the water happily trying to get killed again. Finally, there was this time that I was hiking this jungle nature trail to hell with my friends Noah and Matt when I slipped in the Kauai mud and found myself hanging precariously by some foliage over a serious drop off, fortunately Noah snatched me back up before I fell to my doom!
Well, I made it back to the mainland in one piece two years later with some new scars to show for bragging rights. This brings us back to mountain biking, the sport that has come the closest to removing me from the gene pool over the last 17 years. Where do I even start? Well, there was this one time where I fell down a steep embankment and was almost impaled by a branch sticking out of a fallen log. I had scratches all over my forearms and my riding partner insisted that we sanitize my dirt clogged wounds with some alcohol based hand sanitizing gel....... you could hear me screaming for a 10 mile radius when the gel was applied. Then there was the time my friends and I were negotiating an old downhill course outside of Bozeman, I was way out in front of them powerbombing the trail while Blur's "Song Number 2" kicking around in my head (this was pre-iPod days). My front tire slipped into a rut...... and the bike and I bounced end over end.....like three times. I was still on the ground moaning when my friends caught up with me five minutes later. Instead of helping me they were like, "Dude, look at your bike!". I looked over only to see the rear wheel of my prized toy bent over like taco shell. I had fun walking the bike out the last mile and a half to the trailhead. That isn't the ultimate though, the ultimate occurred just over two years ago just south of Missoula up Pattee Canyon. I was powerbombing down a very familiar trail trying to keep up with Jack, the Porsche 911 Turbo of canines, when I hit an exposed rock head on and went over the handle bars, only this time I didn't bounce. I broke my right arm and about 3 left ribs. I hit so hard it cracked to face of my cell phone in my backpack and completely shattered my sunglasses. Oddly enough the bike emerged unscathed and Jack was looking at me like I was some kind of pansy as I screamed in pain. Needless to say, the mile walk back to the trailhead with the bike was much more miserable than my previous walk of shame.
So here I sit with my cold and aching back, all from mountain biking too much and I have come to the conclusion that my hobbies are definitely trying to kill me. Some people argue that I am just accident prone but I know for sure that they couldn't be more incorrect if they tried to be. I do have hobbies that haven't attempted to kill me yet like reading and video games but I'm sure they are plotting my demise as I speak. Fortunately I'm a tough bird to snuff out so I proudly stick my tongue out and keep on keeping on!
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