ok, I failed but I didn't deserve this...
Sat came and went, no ride
Sunday came and boy did we ride, me, Jack, Tim, Nick, Rob and Jeff
Teggs Nose, peaks epic light, all the best bits of the foothills of the peaks, gettng lost, finding new trails, lots and lots of climbing and descending, all good
but then a comedy fall for me, it went like this...
last climb of the day, back up the cobbled footpath to Teggs Nose car park, always was a challenge even 20 yeras ago when I was fit, getting to the gate 4/5s of the way up was a challenge, going beyond the gate to the rocky steppy section was an achievement to boast about
today I got within sight of the gate, pleased with my self that I had done it, pleased that I was about to stop and use the opening of the gate to get my breath back and tuck my lungs back into my chest, remove my heart from somewhere near my ears and get my breath back before the others arrived
but, I didn't factor in the couple of walkers, he saw me struggling and ran to the gate to open it for me, I smiled weakly and mentally braced myself for the challenge ahead, just needed to lift the front wheel over this small step to get through the gate
Bang
chain snapped
I looked up to see the chap shocked at the noise and my immediate reversal back down the hill (bearing in mind its about one in four at this point) accelerating backwards I was most pleased to have the presence of mind to not apply the back brake, that would have been disastrous
Applying the front brake didn't slow me down at all, so I bailed to my right and took the inevitable crash on the chin, or in fact in this case in the ribs, the bars swung round and caught my right hand side, I knew immediately that this was gonna hurt but was laughing so much at the absurdity, meanwhile the chap had run after me, he was also laughing and helped me up, he was also apologising as he realised that this was totally his fault, and we both laughed and went on our respective ways.
In the car I knew, it didn't hurt that much but past experience told me that 2 days later I would be in agony, and so I was, luckily on this occasion I managed to involuntarily push something "back in" whilst tossing and turning in bed and so it isn't now as bad as it could have been, still sore and ten days later I've still not ridden but will do tomorrow.
so where was the failure ?, well this same chain had snapped 2 weeks ago, I fixed it out on the trail and promptly forgot about it, a failure to prepare :-0
