Elizabeth Furnace-God, I feel awful.

I should have came away from this ride feeling pretty good about my abilities and the ride in general but instead I'm sitting here Saturday night with what feels like every bone in my body aching. I almost wished I had stayed down South and ridden Rosaryville. Almost, I'm glad I did go, the experience was good for me.

Temperature wise it was a beautiful day. I might have went without a jacket except for the winds. There were alot of MORE people there. It was the biggest gathering I have seen so far. Our casual group alone had 16 people in it. This was the first official ride of the 29er. I'll post later on my thoughts about bike.

This was my first ride there, and once again I got new experiences. I was fabberglasted at the rocks at Greenbrier my first time there. That was just a primer for this place. There were more of them and they were bigger. Next time I go to Greenbrier it should be a piece of cake compared to this place.
People kept telling me about the "hike a bike" section. I kept waiting for it to come up. We finally come to a spot where no one is evan trying to ride it. Took about 1 to 2 minutes to go up. Hell that wasn't bad, whats the big deal. Uh Uh. That wasn't it. Someone probaly can correct me, but I swear the "hike a bike" was 1- 1/2 miles. I've never had to stop and rest before while hiking but this time I stopped at least 3 times to catch my breath. Evertime you'd hit a switchback there was more damn hill. There's no way to describe this to someone who hasnt done it. I tried for 15 minutes with the wife. I got the same response from her I always get "And this is fun?"

The descent from the top should have been the highlight of the day but it was my downfall.
Earlier in the ride I had fallen and smacked my elbow good. Everybodies done it. You stop for minute, rub it, shake it off ,keep rid'n , and have a nice bruise to show your spouse later. On the descent from the top I take a fall and hit the same exact spot. Most know this feeling too. Your really pissed off, you can't believe you landed on the same damn spot. And for me, my body goes into defensive mode. DONT DO THAT AGAIN! I stiffen up and start really riding sloppy, which of course leads to more spills. 1 twists the left leg back, another one I smack the same elbow again , the next one really scared me. I throw my right leg out to help protect the elbow and left leg and hyper extend it. I swear I hear a pop and am laying on the ground. Luckily I guess nothing serious happend (we'll see how it feels tomowrow), but from then on I'm walking just about everything the least bit technical with a limp.

The whole ride turned to shit for me simply because I got psyched out by an injury.

Next week I'm ordering a thudbuster for the new ride and I'm getting some arm armor. If I had been wearing armor this would have been a great day all around.

To add insult to injury, the front shifter stopped working on the 29er. The last 3 miles I only had the small ring. Bike Doc , here I come.