Hit a Tree

Actually hit two this weekend, but the first was the worst.

You can see the damage it caused the tree, which probably made out better than the bike. The bike lost a radiator shroud and the complete headlight assembly. Not that I used the headlight, but it was nice knowing I had one if I did need it.

I’d like to blame it all on Yoder for showing up, but that wouldn’t be fair. Yoder’s been riding mostly motocross (tracks, jumps, high speed berms) this past year, so seeing him ripping faster through the woods is inspiring. Where Craig and I have gotten better in a technical sense (logs, rocks, roots), Yoder is better at pure speed. I am not.

In this particular situation I was moving pretty fast up hill. I saw a nice big rock I decided I wanted to ride, but didn’t take into account my speed. Instead of just riding the rock, I launched off the rock. Once in the air, I had little control of where and how to land, hence the tree.

The second tree, later in the ride and less dramatic, was just your everyday “whoops that’s a tree. Bam!” kind of thing.

All in all a good ride despite starting with 7 people and not losing the two slowest until half-way through. We covered a lot of ground and rode a lot of different conditions (it was raining when we arrived).

Interesting to note, the green lines are where the speeds reach upwards of 60mph.

Unfortunately won’t be riding for a while, or potentially the rest of the winter. It’s all up to the weather at this point.

– b