Rahr85
E*POWAH Master
Hello all, i figured i would give this it's own thread as things didn't quite go as i had planned and there is a lot of fragmented content regarding this over the site.
Before this all happened i was going to be using an ebike pedal pass but one of the other four guys managed to fall off at greno woods and fractured his c1 vertibrae. So straight away we were down to 4 of us but all using the uplift service for the morning session.
The other 3 had made plans to travel down on the friday and go for a casual ride. I chose to repeat my first trip to wales and set off not too long after 05:00 when the sun was up and made my way down to meet them. Setting up seemed to take forever and sam managed to break a valve core whilst setting his tyres up, taking this moment i wandered off to sign in for the day and pick up a second go pro to hopefully capture some extra footage which could include the other people with me.
Normally i run around 22/24 psi in the tyres but was given advice (poor in hindsight) to run more pressure to avoid splitting a tyre on a rock.
Fairly uneventful start to the riding, chose to warm up on the blue trails. They are nice and flowy and fast but the extra pressure in the tyres really killed my usual feel for the bike and worse just meant i was getting a lot of extra vibration through my hands making the end of the run a lot more hard work than they should have been.
Then we had a look at the red trails. First time down we went down vicious valley and dropped into A470 to allow us to scope out the newly refurbished trail, this run i just went nice and slowly and either rolled over the jumps or made sure i landed flat on the top, nothing much to report here. Then it was AC/DC which once again showed up my lack of confidence on the bike for the day and had a few close calls which made me just revert to my usual tyre pressure setup.
If i had to pick one i would say i do prefer the more technical red trails to the jumps but it is great that bike park wales has just enough to cater for almost everyone.
So anyway, had a good blast going down a mix of the other red trails including some sketchy moments on ac/dc, next time up the others were asking if we should do dai hard which is a black graded trail, given that i wasn't really feeling all that confident i asked if we could skip it for the time being and they accepted this and decided to go down A470 again, this is where things took a turn for the worse.
Before anyone feels the need to critique my riding i am well aware of what skills i do/don't have and i do try and ride within my limits. On this occasion having rolled down the trail once before and seen multiple youtube videos i was aware of what i was getting myself in for in theory, but there aren't really any places near me where i can practice getting in the air on big jumps in the style of a470 so i had to just hit it and pray. First few weren't too bad and i stuck to what i knew in terms of just staying neutral on the bike on the transitions and trying to keep a consistent speed. I was a bit too fast for a few of the jumps and as such didn't shift my weight forward enough for a smooth landing, but there's time to improve on that. When i got down about two thirds of the way down the next jump i was faced with was just as the trail turns right slightly and i know i'm no good at anything but dead straight. I think i might have touched the brakes on the run up but regardless i realised i was going to come up a bit short on the landing so braced for the impact and well..... watch the video.
The good news was that I wasn't knocked unconscious, the borrowed gorpo flew off on impact and whilst i was in a fair bit of pain the adrenaline was stopping me from realising what had actually happened. As i was able to get up and walk about/crouch/lie down my friends just thought i was winded and after some confusion i managed to get them to call for help. A nice lady medic who works there turned up on a bike and tried to get some information out of me to not much avail and a vehicle was called to come and collect me.
Most of the next hour was me mostly just trying to breathe and keeping my eyes shut to concentrate, the dark humour in me still couldn't help but laugh when i heard the others struggling to lift my heavy ass bike into the rescue car and then my own car. Regardess, the pain was the most i've ever felt and somehow i managed to stagger into a&e at the local hospital. A CT scan, some various prodding and sticking tubes in my side and copious amounts of painkillers later i was told that i had managed to break ribs 4,5&6 and puncutred my right lung and that everything else seemed to be in tact.
Couple of days rest in hospital and i was sent home packing with a goody bag of drugs and a letter allowing me to stay home for at least 6 weeks. The staff were excellent and i'm sure my stubborness did them a favour as i didn't ask for much assistance whilst i was in, nobody is making me use a bed pan even if it means hauling a container and a seperate drip on wheels with me.
I know i got a mix of luck and unlucky, 9/10 times i would have just slid down the other side of the jump and got straight back up, but i could also have broken my spine if i had not worn the protection i had. I will go into the aftermath in terms of protective gear and what was damaged in another chapter.
Cheers to anyone that made it this far, the video is pretty much the tl:dr..
My wife doesn't seem to understand how i am able to make fun of it all but what's the point in worrying over what could have happened?
Before this all happened i was going to be using an ebike pedal pass but one of the other four guys managed to fall off at greno woods and fractured his c1 vertibrae. So straight away we were down to 4 of us but all using the uplift service for the morning session.
The other 3 had made plans to travel down on the friday and go for a casual ride. I chose to repeat my first trip to wales and set off not too long after 05:00 when the sun was up and made my way down to meet them. Setting up seemed to take forever and sam managed to break a valve core whilst setting his tyres up, taking this moment i wandered off to sign in for the day and pick up a second go pro to hopefully capture some extra footage which could include the other people with me.
Normally i run around 22/24 psi in the tyres but was given advice (poor in hindsight) to run more pressure to avoid splitting a tyre on a rock.
Fairly uneventful start to the riding, chose to warm up on the blue trails. They are nice and flowy and fast but the extra pressure in the tyres really killed my usual feel for the bike and worse just meant i was getting a lot of extra vibration through my hands making the end of the run a lot more hard work than they should have been.
Then we had a look at the red trails. First time down we went down vicious valley and dropped into A470 to allow us to scope out the newly refurbished trail, this run i just went nice and slowly and either rolled over the jumps or made sure i landed flat on the top, nothing much to report here. Then it was AC/DC which once again showed up my lack of confidence on the bike for the day and had a few close calls which made me just revert to my usual tyre pressure setup.
If i had to pick one i would say i do prefer the more technical red trails to the jumps but it is great that bike park wales has just enough to cater for almost everyone.
So anyway, had a good blast going down a mix of the other red trails including some sketchy moments on ac/dc, next time up the others were asking if we should do dai hard which is a black graded trail, given that i wasn't really feeling all that confident i asked if we could skip it for the time being and they accepted this and decided to go down A470 again, this is where things took a turn for the worse.
Before anyone feels the need to critique my riding i am well aware of what skills i do/don't have and i do try and ride within my limits. On this occasion having rolled down the trail once before and seen multiple youtube videos i was aware of what i was getting myself in for in theory, but there aren't really any places near me where i can practice getting in the air on big jumps in the style of a470 so i had to just hit it and pray. First few weren't too bad and i stuck to what i knew in terms of just staying neutral on the bike on the transitions and trying to keep a consistent speed. I was a bit too fast for a few of the jumps and as such didn't shift my weight forward enough for a smooth landing, but there's time to improve on that. When i got down about two thirds of the way down the next jump i was faced with was just as the trail turns right slightly and i know i'm no good at anything but dead straight. I think i might have touched the brakes on the run up but regardless i realised i was going to come up a bit short on the landing so braced for the impact and well..... watch the video.
The good news was that I wasn't knocked unconscious, the borrowed gorpo flew off on impact and whilst i was in a fair bit of pain the adrenaline was stopping me from realising what had actually happened. As i was able to get up and walk about/crouch/lie down my friends just thought i was winded and after some confusion i managed to get them to call for help. A nice lady medic who works there turned up on a bike and tried to get some information out of me to not much avail and a vehicle was called to come and collect me.
Most of the next hour was me mostly just trying to breathe and keeping my eyes shut to concentrate, the dark humour in me still couldn't help but laugh when i heard the others struggling to lift my heavy ass bike into the rescue car and then my own car. Regardess, the pain was the most i've ever felt and somehow i managed to stagger into a&e at the local hospital. A CT scan, some various prodding and sticking tubes in my side and copious amounts of painkillers later i was told that i had managed to break ribs 4,5&6 and puncutred my right lung and that everything else seemed to be in tact.
Couple of days rest in hospital and i was sent home packing with a goody bag of drugs and a letter allowing me to stay home for at least 6 weeks. The staff were excellent and i'm sure my stubborness did them a favour as i didn't ask for much assistance whilst i was in, nobody is making me use a bed pan even if it means hauling a container and a seperate drip on wheels with me.
I know i got a mix of luck and unlucky, 9/10 times i would have just slid down the other side of the jump and got straight back up, but i could also have broken my spine if i had not worn the protection i had. I will go into the aftermath in terms of protective gear and what was damaged in another chapter.
Cheers to anyone that made it this far, the video is pretty much the tl:dr..
My wife doesn't seem to understand how i am able to make fun of it all but what's the point in worrying over what could have happened?
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