Riding skill reality check

Headed out to meet the Monday Night Something crew. It was hot, crazy hot. It was great, there were no knee warmers or arm warmers needed. Those skinny frail racer types were all loving the heat. Normal time, normal place, normal group with the addition of two people riding big wheelers, off we went.

Now I'll say that I may have had better judgement had I been on a singlespeed, if the group stuck to the old rules which have gone slack. I would have never even considered my actions. One of the cool things about Midhurst is the North shore, freeride bridges along with a few obstacles etc. Like any strung out rider we all alter the routes a little to catch as many of these as possible. First couple no problem, nothing new. What's that!!

As everyone turns to the right I drift to the left. As I roll towards it on my 4 inch front and 4 inch rear travel which should be plenty for anything type racish mountain bike known as an Anthem I'd wish I'd looked before I leaped. Or in this case jumped. I rolled up the little ramp and the ground didn't seem all that far away when i looked at it from the distance so of course I didn't even pause. What I didn't realize is that who ever built this jump had dug out the dirt directly after it meaning that there is a big hole, gap, cavern that if I didn't make some very quick movements I was probably going to land in it.

No I didn't make a spectacular blooper video, what I did do though was land a little off balance and put an unusual pressure on my not designed for launching off a 3 feet drop xc tires and my front tire decided to fart. A blast of air seemed to bring things back to normal and the ride continued, for 3 minutes. A second attempt to seal the tire but failure, the bead managed to scoop up a sand box of dirt. My ride was over as I limped the bike back to the car. The others went off to play.

Lesson learned, look before you leap, xc bikes are not for hucking huge doubles and having more than mid 20 psi in a tire to do something it's not supposed to do is very important. On a good not the body is beginning to feel a little bit better each day, the stairs in my house do not scare me, the general ache of the body has gone down to a few specific spots of normal discomfort. These are all good things with it less than 3 weeks before I do it all again.