AIRprentice Sweepstakes

Unfortunately, last Wednesday I added myself to this season’s rapidly growing list of bike park casualties. It was my first ride back in the bike park since summer finally reared it’s head, sucking the moisture out of every berm, jump and root garden. I wasn’t prepared for how dusty everything had got, and a hole filled with silt on lower Canadian open swallowed my front wheel, launching me over the bars to a rocky landing on the small of my back.

  Hip step up; a problem my physio corrected for me, but also part of my new line.

Injury generally leads to a lot of thinking time. I always try to remain as positive as I can, because I know personally, and probably for a number of others too, state of mind definitely affects the healing process. Between time spent roasting myself from white English tourist to lobster red status in the sun, and getting embarrassingly good at Tiger Woods golf on the X-box, I was thinking about how awesome our bodies actually are. 

   Looking up on the same line.

The bike park has been claiming a lot of victims recently. People seem to be dropping like flies. But, the vast majority of these injuries will heal to close to 100%. Some might need a little TLC and a nudge in the right direction, but the human body is quite the expert at regeneration and regrowth. Imagine if you had a bike that could do the things your body can; if a fractured chainstay or broken derailleur hanger could be set in a cast, and be good to go again after a few weeks. Or if the remedy for a torn sidewall was ice, rest and a few physio sessions. Or even if superficial scratches to the surface would clear up with a bit of polysporin and a band aid. Granted, you may spend a bit more time off the bike waiting for it to fix itself, but potentially you could be rocking the same bike now that you started out riding on years ago! It seems weird to think about, but you are still rocking the same body you were back then! Recovering from injury helps me to appreciate just how amazing this is. 

  A van in the woods, with graffiti this good, was just asking to be hit somehow!

A bruised kidney and torn muscle on the left side of my back has resulted in a painful week, but hasn’t stopped me keeping busy.

I have a few other projects I have been working on, and will hopefully be shooting for your viewing pleasure in the near future. For now, I will leave you with a couple of teaser shots of some lines I have been building in the Whistler valley…

You can see by the way he bounced around on the back that Paul’s core strength took a beating in his crash.  Hopefully he’ll be able to firm things up at the gym.  I’ve been enjoying Paul’s blogs.  And you?  Vote here…