Aliso Woods Ride Report, this involves a crash.

Last Saturday, we met up with Joe,Cons, Gabe “Dr. Thunda”, AV Dan along with The Animal and Lil’ Animal.

We started at the lower parking lot of Aliso Woods. To reach the top of a trail called Cholla, we had to ride 2 miles on the main fire rode before ascending another 7-11 mins of granny gear riding.

The Animal and Lil’ Animal were leading the group as they muscled their way up the trail.

Here’s Gabe “Dr. Thunda”. He’s not a real Doctor, but he can give you a thorough exam on the trail.

Resting at the top of Cholla. Eric likes to pack his Ergon BD1 with enough drinks and snacks for his daughter Dana. One time he even had chicken nuggets in there!

Priscilla and Joe sporting their SRC Championship Jerseys.

We decided to go down a trail called Lynx. This is a super fun, fast and technical (at times) single track. Since AV Dan knew this trail like the back of his hand, he lead the group, Joe and I followed. We quickly approach a few trail workers and come to a stop. We let them make their way up and when it was time to go, Dan and Joe led first. I proceeded to roll about a foot, then my front wheel got caught on a rut, and OTB I went! I landed with my left arm across my chest, and face on the ground. The wind gets knocked out of me and I’m grunting and squirming trying to catch some much needed air. At the same time, one of the trail workers starts asking me tons of questions about my shoulders, my neck, and etc. He basically wanted to make sure I was ok. But when you’re in the middle of pain like that, you just want to be left alone. Anyhow, I try to sit up, my knee is banged up, I see Priscilla rolling, and asked if I was ok. I slowly get up, made sure all my fingers, hands, shoulders and penis was working fine. I’m good.

I get back on the bike and hurry to get to the bottom of the trail I catch up to Dan and Joe. I gave quick explanation of what happened. Within a few minutes, the adrenalin wears off, and I start to feel the pain. From the stinging sensation on my knees (road rash) to the aching pain radiating from my ribs. We were supposed to go back up Cholla, but because of the pain, I tell the group to go ahead and I’ll meet them back at the car. The 2 mile ride back to the car wasn’t too bad. I’d occasionally wince from the pain in my ribs. I never went to the doctor, but I’m sure they’re not broken, possibly bruised.

Picture taken at the bottom of Lynx.

2 days later, I’m feeling my ribs even more. It hurts when I laugh, sneeze, cough or anything with the same type of motion. I can’t even tie my shoes without it hurting. At this point, I’m really bummed out. I just started training for all this downhill racing that I wanted to do, but now I’m side lined by an injury! ARGH! Pretty frustrating. Luckily I was able to get on the spin bike last night for about an hour. I’m going to try and maintain my cardio level that way when I’m all healed up, I didn’t lose any valuable conditioning time.