I’ve had it suggested to me that I should be wearing that beekeeper ‘kit’ when I ride (thou not to jink myself, but haven’t been stung yet this year…however my miles are WAY down this year too..so there is that).

Does this aversion to welts mean you don’t to check out our beehives when you come borrow Stumpy?

You have to admit, this is a whole new level of sexy when it comes to being “kitted up”! *snort*

If The Cyclist ’swam’, The Swimmer ‘ran’, and their ‘ringer’ Runner ‘rode’ (not Lisa btw) then Good Luck might be in order. We’d also get a FABULOUS blog post from such an effort. Hmmmmmm?

But Fatty, seriously, good luck!

Ouch!

But now can we talk about your little brother cycling with a razor? What’s up with that? I am sure I’m about to learn it’s common practice amonst the hardcore cyclists but now all I can imagine is you and your bro sitting at the edge of a lake after a long ride, lifting your legs to shave each calf and then comparing for silky smoothness.

I’d been riding them for a week or 2, feeling quite smug about everybody ELSE’s falling stories. Riding w/ my little bro, on a very technical trail w/ giant yucca’s on the uphill side of the twisty singletrack turns (very narrow singletrack…if you veer off the trail on the downhill side you will most likely need a helicopter resuce for your body)…so you either take the yucca hit on the right shoulder, or die going off the trail (if you’ve never rode around/into a giant yucca…the tips are pointy like you won’t believe…by the end of that ride I had about a dozen good bleeding holes in my right shoulder). NOT a good trail for a newbie to go clipless.

On one section (I’d made it past the yuccas) there was some pretty-big rocks, making sort on a very narrow S turn thru them. I was in the middle of them when I got stuck and tried to bail out. My left foot (downhill side) somehow unclipped, and was flailing about in mid-air doing NOTHING for my predicament (that I was about to fall off the trail down the steep bank into death). Not yet having the ‘heel click’ manuever ingrained into my a routine move, I’m desperatly trying to force my foot straight back/out of the pedal (which everybody knows doesn’t work)..at the last second before I tetered off the edge my heel must have gone out far enough in my blind-panic and I clicked it out, and JAMMED it straight down onto the trail to keep from falling. Note here: I had JUST had the bike shop install new XTR cranks/rings. As I jammed my foot down to steady myself (right in front of the right crank) I found out how sharp those new rings are. Sliced the back of my calf open pretty badly…about a 3″ vertical gash.

And as we had been climbing and riding pretty hard, my legs were gorged w/ blood…it looked HORRIBLE…the gash was opened up wide, bleeding profusely. My little bro calmly whips out some butterfly bandages AND a little disposable razor out of his camelback (no shaving of legs for us mt men), and he closed it off as best he could. Never did get stitches (he had lots of butterfly bandages in his condo)…and strangely it healed pretty well, not nearly the cool scar I was expecting. I was so freaked about almost falling over the edge that it didn’t even hurt…for a while. I think I was shaking the whole while he was bandaging me up. Don’t think I had any more issues after that one. And now it’s like seatbelts in the car…feel naked without them. Can’t imagine NOT being clipped in.