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Go Bigger Or Go Home (08.17.01)
When I worked in Trail (I don't want to talk about it)
a girl used to come to work every day showing off her newest bruise and
scrape
'Bryan you've got to try mountain biking it's awesome"
"No thank you - you bleeding freak"
Now having joined the freaks, I'm more shocked when a shower doesn't horribly
sting. But such is the price of indescribable fun.
As the season progresses it's only natural that you're going to see more accidents. Easily the most spectacular and quite possibly the most in numbers comes when you have 500 people covering countless vertical feet in a Mountain Bike Park. Each and every time I've had the privilege to use this remarkable venue I've also had the privilege to witness some horrific accidents. 3 broken collarbones, multiple concussions, a torn spleen (heal fast Matt), torn ribs, and gouges galore. But the number just seems high because with limited runs you're bound to see most of the accidents. As opposed to the winter when there are 10,000 people destroying themselves over miles of terrain. The number of accidents is also not surprising considering the amount of vertical feet one can accumulate in one day.
But let me tell you this, if you're going to break yourself up doing what you love, this is the place you wanna do it. Not 5 minutes after I broke my clavicle (yes I'm ok, yes it hurts, yes I have drugs) I was escorted to the clinic (Thanks to Mr. Peterson!!).
There I was glad I've stuck to backing up the nurses. Let me tell you, when you have a crushed vertebrae, do you want a nurse looking after you that's been working for 15 hours? Even as it was I was in there for 5 hours with a fairly routine injury. But bandaged up and feeling fine I walked out thanking my lucky stars I wasn't the shattered vertebra in the next bed.
As the mighty JJ said, "there's no ripping without rubbing" - I don't know if that was the exact quote. By that time I was flying quite high on endorphins, but I liked it none the less. Easily the best part of the day was when we figured out I'd be back just in time for the Bill Landry Lunar Enduro.. Yee-haw!
For those of you still kicking. Rip it up and tell me all about it over a pint at the pub.
Bryan lives, loves, and watches a lot of movies in Squamish.
P.S. kudos to all those one finger typers out there, I don't know how you do it and still resist the urge to kill.
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