Truckin'

You know it's gonna be a long day when a stranger at the hot springs looks up at you and says, "Were you mauled by a bear?"

This morning, we packed everything in the van/truck/Subaru, cleaned the cabin, dinned our cycling gear, and took off down the road.

On the way out of town we stopped at the Lower Red Rock downhill bike trail. Three of us would take it half way, three all the way, and two both. I was in the half-way group. We set off slowly. I was behind Noelle, with Penelope a ways behind us both. The path was full of long, relatively straight stretches in the bushes and rocky drops near the creek. When we'd been going for a while, I got tired of slowing down as Noelle walked the rocky sections, so I passed her and picked up some speed.

I was doing well until I hit a long, steep rocky decline. Just as I realized I was going a little too fast, I hit a rock and endoed*. Not to worry though, my face broke my fall. I got up and noticed the blood dripping from my head. As soon as I figured out it was just my nose, I stopped freaking out. Noelle came along and pulled the bike off the path. We sat there for a few minutes and when I stopped bleeding I put the chain back on the bike, jumped on and finished my section. Once we all got to the bottom and ate our pack lunch, I noticed my arm was banged and badly bruised, my face was scratched some, and my nose was a bit bruised.

We piled back into the cars and headed for Keough Hot Springs, with a quick stop at Schat's Bakery for a bucket of cookies. The hot springs were refreshing and gave up a chance to clean up (and have some more fun), before taking off for the long drive back to Santa Barbara.

Despite getting bruised and bloodied, it was an excellent day.


*For the non-cyclists and unimaginative, endoing is when the bike stops abruptly and you fly over the handlebars.