Addicted to Mt biking

Waiting for the race to start

At the end of my 2015 race season I decided to cater to my penchant for all mountain riding and entered an enduro race at Highland Mt bike park in NH.  The night before the race it poured and dumped several inches of rain on everything including the mountain and race stages which made for ridiculously slippery conditions as every root and rock was covered in slimy mud.  I almost came out of the race unscathed, having only suffered minor scrapes from a few falls, until the last stage.  

This stage was the steepest, most difficult, and rockiest stage of them all, and I managed to complete 90% of it with out breathing from sheer terror at its difficulty.  It was literally the toughest mt biking trail I have ever ridden in my life. 

Helmet hit the ground first, thankfully it was full face protection.

The terror factor resulted in my death gripping the handle bars and as far as I can tell the reason why I got bit in the last 200 feet of the race, when I lost control on a turn; fell over the bike, failed to clip out, hit head first into the ground, landed my left thigh on a broken sapling tree stump, and rolled over the bike while it was still attached to me.  I felt a very weird sensation in my left hand and immediately thought that I had torn a tendon.  I got up, checked that I was ok, got back on the bike and finished only to realize that something was very wrong.  

Spiral fracture on 4th metacarpel bone

After a trip to the ER tent and 30 minutes of waiting to make sure I didn't have a concussion, I made the 2 hour drive home in severe discomfort from my thigh and hand, only to come to find out several hours later that my 4th metacarpal suffered from a spiral fracture from the fall.  I was placed in a cast and told that it would stay on for 6 weeks, followed by 2 weeks in a brace, and that I could resume full activity after 12 weeks. 

The first week I was good.  I didn't do anything but rest.  By the second week I was getting ancy, so I started to do some light cardio and hiking.  But, I had reached my limit on the third week.  I had been away from my bike for three solid weeks, something I haven't done in over 15 years.  So I decided that I would grab the most stable bike I own and go ride the easiest place I could find, and headed to a local rail trial with my fat bike. 

Yes, this was a stupid thing to do, but I literally couldn't stay away from biking for that long, I just missed it too much.  I was having nightly mt biking dreams and was waking up very upset that I couldn't bike.  So I decided that enough was enough and took matters into my own hands.

We can all agree that there are far worse addictions,  but I won't deny that I am fully addicted to mt biking, and I'm not sorry about that.  As for Enduro racing, I'm probably over it, but then again I know better then to never say never.  

"Falling down is how we grow. Staying down is how we die." -Brian Vaszily