Last night we rode in the Mt Pisgah Conservation Area starting in Berlin. It was a warm day and both Chris and I lamented that we only had long sleeve jerseys. I put leg warmers on as I thought it would get cold later, but they were unnecessary.

Riding in the woods this time of year is both magical and challenging. We started just before sundown and everything under the trees was bathed in golden light, somehow thick and infusing the forest floor with magic. Yet the same forest floor is covered in leaves and pine needles, making tire traction an elusive quantity and hiding rocks and roots. This makes for interesting riding.

The first part of Mt Pisgah includes a hill that just keeps going. It's hard to maintain wheel contact on a steep trail covered in leaves, but tonight my nemesis was slick roots that my tires continually spun on. Chris fared better than I did, I think it's his new square tire pattern with extra wide tread. Still, it was ridable with only the occasional slip.

This area is a lot of fun to ride, lots of twisty trails and obstacles. But after a while the rocks get tedious, every trail has lots of rocks. Not large round rocks that make for a technical challenge, but lots of small rocks that beat you up and check your speed.

At one point we were jamming down a trail on the side of a hill. I saw Chris disappear as he split between two trees in the trail, then I heard him crash. I stopped at the trees while he dusted himself off. Nothing serious, but it'll hurt in the morning. He thought his helmet might be broken as he hit his head pretty hard, but the helmet was intact; and worth far more than he paid for it!

A while later we came to 'The Log'. The log is a downed tree, close to 70' in length, with a dogleg in the middle. Someone used a chainsaw to provide a 6" flat surface over the length. Getting onto the log is the secret to riding it: it's steep and you need enough speed to glide onto the top of it and maintain your balance. There are the ever-present rocks in front of the log, making a smooth approach almost impossible.

Every time we ride here we spend time trying to master the log. Chris has more success than I, but both of us usually make it across. The log is about 18 " off the forest floor, and there are trees and rocks all around it. Most of the time if you lose your balance it's easy to just ride off, or hop your bike sideways. Speed is never an issue here so it's rare we get hurt. Until tonight.

After several tries Chris finally made it all the way across. I hadn't even come close tonight, I couldn't get on top with the right amount of speed. But with one last run before we continued our ride, I had a good line on it.

I rode the length of the log with good balance. But as I approached the end my front tire was drifting close to the right edge, but looked like it would make it. The tire suddenly slipped off the log exactly at the end, and my wheel jammed into the rocks that form the down ramp off the end. The sudden drop and abrupt stop catapulted me onto the rock down ramp. My feet were still attached to the pedals as I whipped around the wedged wheel like a tomahawk.

It threw me pretty hard, and I landed face first on the rock, sliding a bit before my body tumbled. Because the bike dropped so fast I hadn't manage to get my arms up in time to break my fall, it was a full on face plant. Not good.

Chris later said:

The sight of that crash kept me from sleeping well last night. I watched Steve ride the length of the log, and was convinced that he had made it. Then there was the sound of the knobbies tearing down the side of the log as the front wheel slipped off to the left, jammed in the junction of a small boulder and a tree. "NOOOO!", I screamed as Steve's face slammed into the rock. He was face down motionless for a couple seconds, and I thought he was dead. Then he lifted his head and spit a mouthful of blood into his hand. "Huh, never broke teeth riding before", he said. "Could you help me put this visor back on my helmet, I seem to be shaking." He was a mess, and his speech was off enough to know that there was some serious damage in there.

I spit out chunks of teeth and lots of blood. Any wounds to your head bleed a lot, this isn't surprising. Chris could see this wasn't good, so we took the more direct route over the road back to the cars. Still, it was 3 or 4 miles and a good distance through the woods to reach a road, but the road was mostly down hill and it went quickly. Chris took a look before I left and didn't think it was as bad as all the blood would suggest.

I called Diane on the way home and asked her to call the dentist. After berating me, mountain biking, and night riding in particular, she finally agreed to call and made arrangements for the dentist to meet me at the office. I am grateful for this help.

Dr. Tom met me and immediately said "Wow, that's bad". Dr. Tom is the best, extremely competent and a great guy. First thing I told him we need to take pictures before he cleans me up, we gotta preserve this for posterity! He totally agreed, thinks it would make a great Christmas card. It took a while to find a memory card for the camera, but he finally took the pictures. I looked worse than I thought, they are kinda gruesome. I haven't decided if I will post them here or not.

Dr. Tom cleaned me up and looked for any lacerations needing suture. He told me how he worked in a hospital ER that was super busy, and when the doctors found out this dentist knew how to suture they had him sewing up all kinds of folks. He says the first ones weren't very good, it's a bit different sewing up a face vs. sewing up inside someone's mouth, but he got to be pretty good at it. Unfortunately, I was scraped up and had several small cuts, but nothing requiring stitches. Maybe next time.

I couldn't bite down and didn't know why, but the reason became clear: the impact broke my cheekbone where the teeth attach, so the teeth pushed into my mouth. The body is actually designed to do this, and in most facial impacts the teeth are preserved. There still a chance the roots will be damaged or the trauma killed the teeth, but hopefully they'll fix.

Dr. Tom moved the teeth back into place and then cleaned up the jagged edges from the chips. The cheekbone presents a real challenge, however. With the teeth back in place and remaining immovable everything will heal. So he put the moral equivalent of a cast on my teeth using epoxy and Kevlar strand; this will use the stable teeth to hold the others in place, sort of like braces. For the next two weeks, I'm on a liquid diet.

In the end I have two broken crowns, a couple of teeth that may or may not need to be fixed, and a bunch of chips I can live with. I have cuts, scrapes, and bruises on my face to the point I don't recognize myself in the mirror. And I have a loving wife who freaks out over little injuries like this, yeesh.