Monday, December 22, 2008

Biking with Sarah and Dan

Sarah and Dan flew over to Christchurch for the holidays. I decided that I would fly down for the weekend before Christmas and join them for a few days of mountain biking. I arrived in Christchurch Friday evening. Early Saturday morning it began raining. And it rained and rained and rained all day Saturday. After a chat with some folks at the B.A.S.I.C. bike shop they recommended giving the Port Hills a day or so to dry out.

Sunday morning the rain finally stopped and things started to dry out. We decided to head out to Bottle Lake an area near the coast that was meant to hold up to wet weather pretty well. The trails were fast and pretty flat, but also quite fun to ride if you could keep the pace up. After we did one loop of the tracks that took about an hour, Dan headed back in for some more while Sarah and I had a bit of a break. There were some cool looking skinnies and a dirt jump park at the parking lot. I was playing on the beginner skinny for quite a while trying to get all the way around. it was probably 100 metres long with a see saw in the middle. After many attempts I did finally manage to ride it all in one go.



Before we left I had one more go. Got past the see saw and was going around the corner and started to come off. I pulled up on the bars as I came off so that I would not "nose-dive" off. Unfortunately, I pulled up a little to hard. I landed on the back wheel and proceeded to tip over backward and land on my back. I was able to get up and ride back to the house.

The next morning my back was pretty stiff and sore. I got up slowly and went to get some milk out of the fridge. I had pain shoot through my back and nearly passed out. It was then I decided a trip to A&E might not be such a bad idea.


Getting checked out in the Emergency Department.

We were in and out in under two hours and I was fine. Just soft tissue injury and I was going to be stiff and sore for the few weeks. After the hospital I stayed at home while Dan and Sarah went off to explore the Port Hills. Poor Sarah was attacked by a sheep and came off her bike, suffering some nasty gravel rash on her elbows.

Today, battered and bruised we might have a bit of break and do something different.

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