Mistakes

A friend of mine once told me a mistake is never stupid if you learn from it. Today was full of a lot of mistakes that I definitely learned from, used to help me, and hope to never repeat again.

I went up today with Wendy to pre-ride the race course for the race this Saturday. Although the trail was not marked we had a map marked with all the different trails we had to take. The first of the course was pretty easy to follow it followed the same route of the Icup race at least until you hit the dirt road that goes up hill, and then it changes. Instead of going up switchback alley, you go down. Well, I didn't catch that and we went up switchback alley, got to the top and realized we had gone the wrong direction.

We went back down switchback alley, but did not realize we needed to cross the road and go down. Instead we continued up the road to the chair lift. We got to the chair lift looked at the number and once again realized we had not gone the right way. We lucked out and talked to one of the guys who knew where we were supposed to go, and he set us straight, so it was back down to switch back alley, and down we went. This downhill is very fun and fast, in fact it is so fast you can miss the camouflaged trail you must turn right on. Which Brian and I did (forgot to mention we picked up another rider pre-riding the course along the way), but luckily Wendy did not. We went past, but it wasn't long before we heard Wendy calling us back.

Can you see the trail you are supposed to go on. It's straight ahead.

It turns out it was a good Wendy stopped where she did, because when we climbed back up she was standing right over my multi-tool. Apparently my bag had come unzipped and it had fallen out. How lucky we had missed the trail. If we hadn't it would have been ages before I knew my multi-tool was gone. I got the tool zipped up my bag and took off down this new trail that has seen very little use. For a trail that has not been ridden much it rides really well.

We lucked out and for the next few turns we were able to go the right way. We did miss a turn that took us up to Speed Trap, but we figured that out and were good to go. Now came the next complicated part finishing in the right place. Apparently somewhere there is a trail that ends just above the upper parking lot. We took one way and ended up just before the top of uphill climb that drops into the single track--this was not the right turn, so we turned back. We continued down, but I never could fine the place we needed to go, so we ended up dropping down onto the road. Oh well, I guess I will find out the ending on race day. I sure hope they have it well marked.

When we got back to the car I reached in my bag and realized my keys were gone! I can't believe I didn't think of this when I put my multi-tool back in. Oh well, at least I had a good idea as to where they might be. Wendy went down to the office, while I took off back up the hill. Going up I got to thinking about some of the mistaken trails I had taken and decided there might be a quicker way to Switchback Alley. I took the trail just to the right of the road which took me to bobsled. Now bobsled is a fun down, and today I discovered not such a bad up, but you must be on your guard for the down hillers, because there are a lot of turns and it can be precarious, luckily for me there were no incidents on bobsled.

However, this turned out to not be the case going up speed trap. I am not sure why it has this name, but you can get some serious speed on this trail. Just as I was coming up the steepest part of the hill a downhiller rounded a corner flying down crazy fast (a minimum of 25, but I am sure faster). The trail was gravely on one side of the road, so both of us were on the same side of the trail. I was not going fast enough to cross the trail, and he was going way too fast to do much of anything. I had just enough time to say "oh sh*#" and turn my bike towards the opposite side of the trail, but the turn was not enough. The downhiller collide right into the side of my shoulder and face. I actually did not go down, but the rider went down hard into the bushes.

He was a sweet kid and kept making sure I was okay. I was not sure as I did not quite have my senses about me, and I lost my hearing in my right ear--boy did it hurt. After a moment I decided I would be fine and let him know. He kept making sure I was okay even though he obviously had hurt his hip. Nice kid. I left continuing up speed trap tentatively and feeling the throbbing in my head and ear, which has stayed for the entire day. It was not long after that I got to switchback alley. From here I went down very slowly seeing if I could see my keys. When I reached the spot I had found my multi-tool I laid down my bike did some hiking to see if I could see them anywhere. No such luck. I never found my keys, but at least I tried, so I feel pretty good about that.

I hurried back to my taking Archies backwards--it is kind of weird going on Archies backwards, but it sure is fun, because it is a lot faster. I got back to the parking lot, and there was my husband with the spare set of keys. I had called him before I took off to look for the other set. Went to rack my bike and discovered my bag and come unzipped again and I had lost my multi-tool. Oh well, no need to go back. It was a fun ride, and I am glad for some of the mistakes I made, because I knew a quicker way up to switchback alley, however I will probably not take this way again, because I really do not want to get hit again, and I am definitely buying a new bike bag.