Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Wind Crash

By the time I picked my bike up from Racer's, I was too late to join the scheduled lunch ride so I headed out for a ride from the shop's front door. I headed to the mouth of Rock Canyon and hopped on the BST. I had a headwind that wasn't too bad until I got to Slate Canyon. I tried out a few of the trails south of Slate, but the wind got fierce enough to blow me off the trail so I went back to Slate.

I had some extra time so I headed up Slate with the wind at my back. If you've been up there, you know it's steep - steep enough that you have to focus on keeping your front wheel on the ground. I rounded a corner, the trail got really steep, and suddenly the wind changed directions so that it was coming down the canyon. "Good", I thought - "I'll have a tail wind on my way back to the shop."

Suddenly, the gental headwind turned into a gale-force wind coming down the canyon. I'm no weather vane, so I can't guess as to the speed, but however fast it was, the wind lifted my front wheel off the gound and started to tip me backwards. I shifted my weight so I wouldn't flip completely over. The wind turned me sideways and my Superfly was suddenly a parachute and I was behind it. The bike pushed me down the trail I had just come up. The wind wasn't slowing down, and the trail was steep, so I flailed under the weight of my bike and the wind for another 10 seconds.

I wish you had been there. All this story needed was someone to laugh at me while I tried to lift my bike off of me.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

serves you right. you people with your ten pound bikes...sheezz..put some rocks in your pockets next time....

just kidding, i wish my bike was that light.

South County Ciclista said...

Times like that when you need your own personal photographer following you along.

Ski Bike Junkie said...

Light bike, nuthin. If you weighed more than a buck and a quarter, stuff like that wouldn't happen.

Aaron said...

Hey, semi trucks get tipped over by the wind too! Plus, I'm at least a buck forty.

Rick Sunderlage said...

That should be an add for the SuperFly. It's that light.