Finest Moments on Two Wheels: by David Belden

Written by David Belden in response to: Finest Moments on Two Wheels.

Mine would have to be a few weeks ago. I was flying down the sawpit trail with good buddies on a wet day, and had been carefully picking lines & jumps as not to end up slipping on a wet log or stick. We were almost all the down the trail, (after the post rock-garden climb) as we got to a fantastic 3 foot jump/drop. It's wooden log/plank that turns slightly up, and the trail falls away below it. The end of the ramp is up on a few horizontal logs, and the approach and the log/plank itself are dead straight. Did I mention it was wet day? I approached the jump at 15 or 20mph (makes for a softer landing when dropping 3 feet) and half way up the jump my front wheel slipped off the ramp and piled straight into the 2 logs holding up the ramp. My bike stopped dead in it's tracks and I heard a loud SNAP! As I hurled through the air I had visions of my lovely carbon bike in 2 pieces... then I hit the ground shoulder/camelback first and rolled quite a few times before popping up onto my feet, and oddly enough my bike apparently took a similar trajectory and was a few feet away from me. Wow was I ever glad the ground was soft! I came out mostly unscathed other than a sore shoulder. As for the loud snap that I was certain was thousands of dollars of carbon going the way of the trash can... well it was just my stem twisting on my steerer tube (not carbon!) so a few turns of an allen key later, I was on my way, only to crash once again on a small wet log/downed branch about 200 yards later. Awesome.

I actually don't think the wet trail was responsible for the crash. I think it was the fact that my armor was in the back of my car at the trailhead, not on my body. :)