sitting on a cactus

April 25, 2005

I recently spent 5 days of spectacular mountain biking in Moab, Utah with
a bunch of awesome friends, and only one day on the Soverign
Trail involved anything interesting from an accident perspective. However,
on one slightly loose uphill I ran out of steam and put down my foot on the
side of the trail. Foot slipped and I fell over. I thought to myself
"oh, at least this happened at zero speed, won't hurt at all." Nope,
I managed to land butt-first on the only cactus in a 200yd radius.
Suddenly this little bobble didn't seem so benign.


A couple buddies nearby kindly took a picture of the carnage before I declared "this stings - I'm taking off my pants." Thus began 20 minutes of standing naked on the side of a trail (thankfully, no other riders came by) while I picked needles out of my bike shorts and my amazing, faithful hubby Jason picked needles out of my butt. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

After removing as many needles as possible (but you can never get them all), I got back on the bike for 10-15 miles more trail. By the end of the day my butt looked like hamburger.

The other bruises and loss of skin mostly came from a little bit further along Soverign -- I came around a corner too fast, drifted off the trail and right into a foot-deep hole in the rock. I landed knees first on the other side of the hole and also bruised the base of my left
hand. This is where a well-placed bunny hop would have come in handy. :)