Instead of the usual Sunday road ride, my friend Maggie and I decided to get out the mountain bikes this morning. She put an invitation to join us on our club’s message board, but we had no takers. When we showed up at the club ride start, some of the roadies greeted us with bemusement at our getup, but soon we left in different directions.
Our target was Bauerle Ranch, a subdivision surrounded by nice singletrack trails. (I’ve written about it before.) We had had a little bit of rain overnight, and the dew point was high, so once we got onto the trails close to home, we could see that today’s ride would be somewhat muddy.
The thin grass along the trail has exploded in growth with all the rain over the past couple of weeks, and being wet, it gave us leg baths as we pedaled along the skinny trail.
But the rain had had another effect, too: It put a lot more rocks across the trail. I don’t mind rock gardens the way I used to, but the ones today were loose, and I could feel my rear wheel skid out to the side when it glanced off them. Nothing serious, but I did find myself stop and walk over a couple of areas that I had ridden just weeks ago.
At Bauerle Ranch, the trail starts out as easy singletrack, but soon starts to dip with lots of rocks to navigate. I was leading the way, and came around a corner to see a large rock in the middle of the track. The front wheel slid a bit, and I realized I would not be able to navigate around the rock — but I wasn’t about to hit it, either. Yeah, right. I hit the brake — the front brake — at the same time the front wheel hit the rock.
Bam! Endover! My right leg slammed into another rock along the trail, and I wound up on my bottom, legs across the trail and my bike on top of them. Already, I could see blood start to roll down the shinbone. I struggled to get the bike off me, as Maggie sympathized.
“What a sight you are right now!” she exclaimed. “I wish I had a GoPro for that one.”
“It felt like I was going over in slow motion,” I said.
“It looked like it, too,” she shot back.

I got untangled, and we mounted back up and kept going. The rest of the ride was mostly uneventful. Maggie got well ahead of me when I slowed to chat with another biker we encountered, and when I caught up to her, she was at the side of the Veloway, intently staring at the ground.
“Look at this cool spider!” she said. “It was in the middle of the Veloway, so I got it off to the side so it wouldn’t get run over.”

It was cool, but neither of us had any idea what it was. (If you know, fill me in.) We left it, and headed home.
Back at Starbucks, we got to assess just how muddy we were from the day’s ride. Our bikes took the brunt of it, but we were well-spotted, too.

It was good to get back on the mountain bike again. But I still suck at it. I’ll keep flailing away, and hope to get better.
That is some badge you got on your knee. I have to say I suck at mountain biking too but I keep trying every once in awhile. I ordered some new pedals. Maybe they will help me when I have to put my foot down in a hurry.
Mountain biking seems to present issues at the most inopportune time and when I try to react I don’t do it right. One time I was riding beside a street in the grass and came to a driveway I never knew people even lived on back in the trees. Just as I was about to ride across a pickup truck pulled in front of me. The driveway dipped down from the grass/dirt I was on and I almost fell as I tried to find a place to put my foot down. Fortunately the driver saw me in time to stop. He waved for me to cross.
As far as the spider goes, was he as big as the picture makes it seem? Monster in the path if so.
I hope your knee gets better quick.
That picture shows the spider at just about actual size, which is why Maggie was able to see it in the first place.
That is an awesome wound! Remember – chicks dig scars, so you’ve got even more going for you now! In the future, I’d recommend against locking your front brake! If you do, consider throwing your weight well to the rear to help Sir Isaac Newton’s equations on momentum balance better. 😉
The sad part is, I know about all that stuff. I do it about 80 percent of the time — maybe. For some reason, I grabbed the wrong brake handle this time.
The owie isn’t as bad once it’s all washed off as it looks in the picture. I can cover it with a single Band-Aid.
What pressure are u running? Roadies tend to overinflate – and it causes problems
Thirty pounds today. I’ve been admonished several times about tire pressure, so I was going for a squishy feel.
You’ve reminded me I’ve hardly been out on the mountain bike this year. Maybe once the snow & ice arrive?
I live in Central Texas. Not all that familiar with snow and ice. 🙂
BTW, the spider turns out to be the black-and-yellow Argiope, sometimes called the black and yellow garden spider. It’s evidently pretty common.
Funny, I was on the trail the same morning(8am) and noticed the washout
on the hills. I hadn’t seen it that bad since the halloween floods
which did a lot of damage on the creek. We must have just missed you.
I was there about an hour later.