Man... I Sucked In Dirt Jumping!

More than two weekends ago, I went riding in the Putrajaya Bike park trying to learn dirt jumping on my hardtail. I could never make it over the several "pee wee" table-tops to the transitions smoothly, always getting my rear wheel short.

Needless to say, after a couple of runs, I crashed on the landing. "Carpet burned" my right elbow and bruised the right hip and thigh. Thanks to the knee and shin guard, no hurt there. Got right up and went at it again... and still sucked. LOL.

After a few more runs, we (I was there with Sean, Ian and Paul) met the seventeen years old Aaron. He is a whizz kid that would have made a fantastic BikeTrial rider, but instead he is into gravity and rides a mean Transition! I asked him to teach me how to dirt jump.... LOL.

Basically, he told us that the section we were on, were not meant for dirt jumps... LOL. We were supposed to "compress" (the rear wheel) on the exit transition to gain speed. Hahaha... all this while, we got it wrong.

Anyway, we tried "compressing" and it was great! I really gained speed on the exit transition. I could not resist trying to jump over the small table-top after gaining all that speed... LOL. Exhilarating! I could almost make it across the table-top smoothly... LOL. Ian was magnificent on a couple of runs!


Video showing Sean and Ian on one of their runs.


Video of Ian and Sean after their run... LOL.

After a couple more runs, I was completely wasted and decided to make one more "last" run. You know what, something always happens on the "last" run! The run was good until the last corner and jump. I could not exit smoothly from the cornering just missing the oil palm tree and took off badly, and that obviously screwed up my landing. And so... I landed on my right side again and this time, "carpet bombed" my elbow and further bruised my hip and thigh. OUCH!!! Lets put it this way, I had to limp off... phew! But I consider that... lucky! Could have been worse... LOL.

After I got back home, man... the hurting started... LOL. The whole body was aching all over. I told myself... at 45 years old, I don't think I can keep doing this... LOL. And my biggest worry at that time was, "Shit, I will not be able to practice trials with all this injuries for at least 2 weeks!!! Damn!"

That was when I decided that I will stop all these other distractions and concentrate solely on just BikeTrial!!! Maybe a cross-country hash once in a while... LOL!

Anyway, it has been two weeks now and I am back on biketrials. I have been riding every single night since Friday. BikeTrial is just so much fun!