Figured seeing as i was out for a solo ride this afternoon and no one was there to see my fuckwittedry....... i would share.
Have some hills behind where i live i ride as regularly as i can. Think fire trails, with some particularly steep sections, loose off camber corners, and well rutted (found that out the hard way a couple of months ago with an OTB moment) with large loose rocks, and little to no real grip.
Ok, so i have recently got some SPD pedals and shoes. im sure you can all see where this is going but bare with me. This isn't quite my first rodeo so to speak, I rode some of the trails on the weekend and had no problems (a few close calls though) and spent a while last week in my street playing around clipping in and out.
So i got home from work early this afternoon and decided to get a quick ride in. All was going well, until i got to a particularly steep section and thought i would be able to get up a little further before i had to walk it. well one loose rock later, and ever so slowly i was rolling over. must have panicked as i'm pretty sure i tried every which way to get unclipped i could, other than the correct one. So extremely ungracefully i find myself lying in the rocks with the bike on top of me.
Shaken, not stirred, i wasn't about to let it beat me, and persevered up the hill. was a good ride through the flatter trails. then i found myself at a nasty down hill section. I had that voice in the back of my head telling me clipped in was not a good idea, but hell, i know how to unclip, not going to make that mistake again..... well i did. haven't been down this little trail in a while, let alone since all the recent rain dug out the ruts even more. so i head down, rear wheel locked up most of the time, front boarding on locking up, just trying to control my speed, being as cautions as i can. then there is a bit of a drop, so have no choice but to left go of the front anchors and pick up a bit of speed to get through..... somehow im making it down, but with increased speed which i cant do anything about. well the choice of bad and worse ruts coming up fixed that. being spat off the bike with it still attached is a new experience, and again i have all the grace of a a bag of bricks). thankfully i landed on my side and came unclipped. bike was unharmed (landed on me first i think). few more scratches, but all good. Phew, that could have been worse. starting to think i should have had my flats on now... but nearly ad the bottom of this section so onward i go. its all pretty easy from here on.
as the trail flattens out a little get some good speed up and enjoy hitting the large tree roots and getting some air, then im back in my little subdivision. down the last little gravel section i go. well with all the recent rain the developer or council has been in and changed the little stream at the bottom i like to gap. wider, deeper, and steep blue metal gravel sides. probably would have been all right with a little more speed, but didn't carry enough in, and slowed down in the loose rock coming out too much. cue panic, and slow motion fall onto the same side as the two previous times.
so hopefully someone gets a laugh out of my misfortune. pretty good effort i reckon.