Monday, October 19, 2009

Everything old is new again

I broke my bike. I broke it real good.



About a month ago as I was training for the Moab 24, it was 5:30am and dark as pitch. I had my lights on but it is not the same as riding during the day. I entered a small wash going about 15mph and saw that the water course had been completely scoured by a recent rain storm. What used to be a smooth transition at the bottom was now a 12 inch high embankment.
There was a loud crack and the sudden stop threw me over the bars, the human mind is an incredible thing because while I was airborne I was fully cognizant that something on my bike was very broken and I actually contemplated how far the walk home was.



I am not telling you something new but my frame builder (Steve Garro/Coconino Cycles) is awesome. I sent him the pics and told him about my dilemma, I assured him that the breakage was due to user interface and had nothing to do with the construction of the frame. So today Fedex showed up with my frame complete with a new front triangle and fresh paint. It looks brand new.
Here is sits on what I assume is Steve's back patio. Nice flagstone.



I put it all back together this afternoon and will take a short shake down cruise Wednesday morning. Its good to have her back, some of you may have noticed in the last post that I was riding a different bike at Moab. If you didn't notice please pay more attention.

PS...... did I mention that Steve is awesome??

2 comments:

DW said...

Mark,

First, are you El Scorcho? "mwrulestheworld.com", "nothing to see here", "el scorcho"...I can't keep it straight.

Second, your comments about the thoughts going through your head as you crashed bring to mind a day we saw CJ try to bunny-hop a log while riding at 30 mph down the Blow-hard trail. Not sure what was going through CJ's mind that day, but I can tell you what I was thinking about: how cool it was to watch him sail through the air in what seems like slow motion, how bad the aftermath was going to be if he broke his neck, how many belly-laughs Mark got out before he actually hit the ground.

Michelle & Steve said...

Embarrassed to admit that I didn't notice you were riding a different bike in the Moab pics. I'll be paying more attention in the future. Glad that everything is back to normal now...