Crash

I'll spare you the bloody photos of rashed and brused skin.  Today was the first time in over a year I hit the dirt,  and did I ever.  Just like events in the past, there was that moment of slow motion between the time my bike mysteriously vanished from underneath me and when I hit trail.  I'm amazed at how everything just stops in those milliseconds giving what seems like minutes to reflect on the situation while flying through the air.

"What? I'm going down!?!? I was riding smooth!"
"I don't remember seeing anything..."
"What did I hit? The trail was clear?!?!"
"Bracing!!!!" .... BOOM!

The trail was fast with a lot of hero dirt, and a little slick in places from the rain over the past few days.  I hit a small 2-3" rut that had just enough bite to pull my front wheel out from under me. I went down hard at 20mph and the trail was unforgiving.  The dirt was so hard that later It was difficult to see where I had landed.  My body ground to a stop leaving skin on rocks, roots, and dirt.  I'm not sure who took the worst fall me or my trusty steed. The bike that was tuned and adjusted with precision at the trailhead lay in a mangled lump.  The bars were cranked around in an awkward position, grips and seat twisted off kilter, and sporting new scrapes into carbon.  My first thought was to get up and walk it off but I was in pain, it hurt, and things were still numb so I stayed down.  I honestly couldn't tell if I had broken something yet.   I laid there for what seemed like 2-3 min until my riding companion showed up (I later asked and he was 2-3 seconds behind me).  After 5 min or grunting and wincing I saddled back up and finished the ride.... much slower.

The route. If you run this in "Player" mode you can see where I crashed.

A bloody photo.  Couldn't resist.