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MrTheCatLady

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MrTheCatLady last won the day on July 24 2019

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  1. Thanks for all the encouragement, folks. On the subject of pads, when out on the MTB I wear Fox Launch Pro d3o knee and elbow pads, with the hard shells in place. Always. And I mostly ride Walnut Creek and Peddler's pass. Which for most people is way, way overkill, but even at Walnut, they have saved my knees and elbows more than a few times. On the road bike, I wear nothing but a helmet. As dumb as it may sound, I can't bring myself to wear pads on the road. Although if I did I guess I might try G-Forms. On the subject of bikes, my road bike is a Surly Midnight Special and my MTBs are a Surly Karate Monkey and a Santa Cruz Blur - both 29ers, both with droppers. I am very comfortable on my bikes. I've bought/sold enough of them these last few years to sort of know what I like. On the subject of technique, well, mine could certainly use improvement. But the last two times I got hurt happened so fast, they were over before I knew what happened. The "tailbone incident" involved me hitting a divot in the road that I simply did not see. For those "Surprise! You're Dead!" moments, I think prevention is the only real solution, as opposed to developing better bailing skills. Hence go slower and be more aware of my surroundings. Be a better judge of risk. I'm gonna have to find a way to amplify the little voice in my head. On the subject of clips vs. flats, I am a clips guy. For both road and MTB. And I have no difficulties getting unclipped in either discipline, apart from the fact that road cleats have terrible traction. Ever almost do the splits at a red light? I have. And while I agree that pavement is a harsh mistress, I ❤️ my road bike, and climbing hills around my area of town (Great Hills - go figure) has really helped my MTBing. Which I guess sounds funny given the title of this thread. Last night not long after I posted I actually got out and rode. I rode the route where I had the tailbone incident, and tried to see what I had hit in the road. I think I found it - a divot containing a little steel drain cover or something, fairly far out in the middle of the right-hand lane. There are lots of those things along the right-hand side of the road next to the curb, but this one was in the middle of the lane, so that might have been it. Anyway, whatever it was, I avoided it this time. I'm sore today but in a good way. Nothing hurts that shouldn't hurt. So I'll probably ride again later this week. One uneventful ride does wonders. -cls
  2. I am 48 years old. I had never broken a bone before I took up cycling 4-5 years ago. Since then I have broken both elbows (one badly, requiring screws, a plate, and a replacement for the "ball" part of the radius), one shoulder, one wrist, and possibly my tailbone. The tailbone is the most recent thing...the *very* *day* my shoulder was cleared for riding, I was on my road bike and I hit a little divot in the street and went flying. I landed in the street HARD on my lower back/upper butt area. Some nice folks called 911 and the paramedics showed up...by then I had stopped yelling/screaming and was able to stand up, and so I actually got on my bike and rode home. The bike was 100% OK BTW, not even a ding in the rim. I ended up not going to the doctor for this because I had painkillers left over from last time or whatever, the pain got noticeably better each day, and I didn't have trouble sitting so much as trouble with things pressing into my lower back. So I could still work (I do IT). So now here we are a month later and I can lie flat on my back on the floor with only some mild discomfort, which means to me the swelling is pretty much gone. I get a little burning in my tailbone sometimes if I sit for too long, but even that's decreased to the point of almost not happening. I am physically ready to get back on the bike. But man, I'm scared. Most of my accidents are speed-related, both on the MTB and on the road bike. So I need to slow down. It's that simple, I guess. But I've known that for the last few accidents and it hasn't kept me safe yet. Instead, I play this stupid game in my head where I think that if I fall and get hurt on every feature or turn where injury is likely, then eventually I'll exhaust all the possibilities and just not get hurt anymore. Until I pick a new trail or route I guess. I've got a big mental block right now WRT getting back on the bike. It seems like I'm getting hurt more often instead of less often. At least, this spring/summer it's been that way. I have thought about giving up riding but it's the only exercise-type thing thing I enjoy enough to stick with. And I need to lose weight. I'm 210 and really ought to be more like 165-170. At most 180. I guess I know what I need to do (slow down), but knowing what to do and doing it I guess are different things. I feel hopeless and at the same time I feel stupid for feeling hopeless because the answer seems to be so simple. Anyway, just venting.
  3. On May 8 I was getting in a quick before-work ride. Rode across a sort-of skinny which is actually the edge of a concrete drainage ditch thing...i can't really describe it. Anyway, there is really busted-up concrete on the left, and about a 3-foot drop on the right, with about a 12-inch edge separating them. Took it too fast and my front wheel rolled right off the edge. I landed hard on the busted-up concrete, mostly on my left arm/shoulder, and my bike landed 3 feet below. The bike was fine. This is right near a homeless camp, and all I could think about while I was lying there moaning and groaning was the probability that I was going to be raped by a hobo who would then steal my bike. That didn't happen, and I miraculously did not seem to have re-broken my left elbow, but my shoulder hurt like hell. I was, however, able to stand, so I walked around and down to my bike, got it back up to where it had fallen from (one-handed), and pushed it on back home. Fortunately I was less than a mile from home. Wife took me to the doc and x-rays showed a proximal humeral fracture - I had broken my shoulder. Shoulder blade and collar bone were unharmed. And the fracture was minimally displaced so he had me in a sling for a week and then light physical therapy. I stayed off the bikes for a few weeks and started back riding road on June 13. PT is going well and I have really good range of motion, but not 100% I think I'll get there over time, though...I've broken enough bones to know that regaining the first 80% of ROM takes about 20% of the recovery time (2-3 months), and the last 20% takes the other 80% of the time (about another year or so). I was really lucky this time, folks. No surgery, relatively little pain, and my typing was pretty much unaffected (I work in IT). I should be back on the trails in another couple of weeks, once I'm sure the shoulder can take that kind of punishment. -cls
  4. Now finally someone can label all the features on Quarter Notch for me!! /ducks -cls
  5. The whole SW quarter of Goodwater seemed like nadge to me. Bleah. -cls
  6. Karate Monkey loitering in my apartment complex. -cls
  7. Awesome, thanks. I've just started MTB'ing again after "Road Bike Winter" and hadn't gotten to see them go up in phases. -cls
  8. I started out clipless (Crank Brothers Candy) when i began mountain biking 3 years ago. Fairly quickly realized I hated it and went to flats. Loved me some Chesters! Then I took up road biking (on a flat-bar rod bike) too, also in flats. Switched to clipless (Look Keo) due to peer pressure and also having bought a proper drop-bar road bike and was a convert. Road riding was new and exciting so i was off the MTB for a few weeks. When I got back to MTB, the very first little hill I went up had me thinking "uh-oh". My feet wouldn't stay on the pedals. I was used to making circles. So I went back to clipless on MTB (Crank Brothers Egg Beaters) and realized pretty quickly that a large part of my dislike of MTB clipless was actually dislike of Crank Brothers. I just never could get the hang of clipping in. I expected to be able to slide my foot over the pedal and if I hit it too far back, it would flip forward 90* and "help me out". It never did. I had to aim, step down, and then forward. SO I gave SPDs a try and they behaved like I expected them to. Slide your foot over the top of the pedal with a little downward pressure, and CLICK you're in. Never looked back. The only time I think flats might be better is sometimes when I try to rail a turn, my inside foot comes unclipped as I point my toe on the pedal into the turn. But I don't know if I should or shouldn't be turning my foot like that. I try to concentrate on stomping my outside foot down into the turn, but the inside foot has a mind of its own sometimes. -cls
  9. Well, what I call OLL starts to the north side of the pedestrian walkway, so it is between the walkway and Walnut Creek itself. I hope those are the Outer Log Loops. Maybe they are the Upper Log Loops? Anyway, as you cross the walkway you are headed NW. Then you turn right and head NE, down some "steps" with a lot of loose rock. On the right-hand side of the trail is that little drop which is basically a big rock you ride off of. Right along in there is the first jump. Then you do kind of a wide S-turn, right and then left, and head NE down towards the left-hand hairpin, which flips you 180* so you are headed SW. You climb just a bit (still going SW) and approach the beginning of the long, sweeping downhill right-hander. At the beginning of this right-hander is the second jump. I verified my directions from the PARD map. -cls
  10. I just did a few forum searches and even a Google search with site:austinmountainbiking.com and could find nothing on this subject; apologies if it has been discussed already. Would appreciate a link if so. There appear to be two new features at the beginning of WC OLL. I would call them jumps. The are right up front. One is right by that first little drop and the other is right before that big sweeping right-hander after the hairpin left-hander, if memory serves. Are these features sanctioned? They both seem to be in rather sketchy places, and they are both JOUS for WC at least. Seems like an accident waiting to happen, either a single-bike accident or a bike colliding with a terrestrian. Or a dog. Does anyone know about these things? -cls
  11. LOL sounds like a few of you didn't know about the rebuild, much less the "traveling cheater rock". You owe it to yourselves to get out there and have a look/ride. I think it's great. I need to try the right-hand line now. -cls
  12. Did some riding in CA a couple weeks ago...gravel biking in the Sequoia National Forest. One of my rides was in 100*F weather, with 9% humidity. At 5000-7000 feet above seal level. It was so much easier than a similar ride in ATX would have been. I had a 7 mile climb @ 4.4% and a 1.8 mile climb @ 6.5 % during that ride, and although I stopped to take breaks a few times and didn't exactly fly up those climbs, I didn't feel like I was going to die. It was kinda weird. -cls
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