Ouch

Today is Wednesday and my ass hurts. On Monday I fell off my mountain bike in Lincoln Woods and landed squarely on my tailbone. It was the dumbest thing because I was just spinning along, climbing a fire road sprinkled with baby heads. I've been up this way many times before. I guess I spaced out or something, but both my tires hit rocks at the same time. I felt the fork compress as the back tire spun out, and down I went. It happened quickly. Usually I fall well, laying the bike down and rolling onto the ground to spread the impact, but this time I fought it and landed awkwardly. Ass to rock impact, but at least it was a round rock instead of a sharp rock.

Tailbone shots are a special kind of pain. It seems like every muscle in my body is attached to the sore spot so it hurts to do just about everything. Yesterday it was bad enough that I would just break out laughing at my misfortune and that would only make the pain worse. Laugh, swear, laugh more, swear more, laugh, cry. Today is a little better, I can move around more easily and I think I'll jump on my road bike today and see how it feels.

I have three bikes. My mountain bike is a 2001 GT Avalanche 1.0. My road bike is a 2004 Specialized Allez Sport. I also have an old beater bike, a 1990 Trek 830 with a bunch of mismatched parts on it. Almost every day I battle internally against the commercial forces washing over the bike industry. One obviously can only ride one bike at a time, and I have three, yet I want more bikes. I wish I had a trials bike, a big "freeride" (I don't really like that word... everything is freeriding unless somebody is pointing a gun at you and telling you where to go...) bike, a cruiser bike, etc. etc.. The magazines tell me I need the newest, the greatest, or the next, and I believe it. I hate that, but I love it too. It's like my own little fantasy world but it doesn't involve dirty, socially taboo stuff. The problem is that a) I'm a grad student and therefore broke, and b) I can't reconcile always wanting new bikes with my environmental/life philosophy of living lightly on the planet and being comfortable with as little as possible. I go through cycles of trying to rationalize putting another two thousand dollars on my credit card and then feeling bad about even thinking about it when I should be saving my money for a ring for my girlfriend and who needs four bikes anyway. Maybe I should just ride the bikes I have more. Then I would become a better rider and would fall on my ass less.