Ass Over Teakettle

If you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting me, or maybe you have and this is new information. Allow me to share a few tidbits about myself.

First, my parents almost named me Grace. Depending on your outlook, that was either very smart on their part, or very unfortunate for myself.

Second, I spent a good chunk of my childhood on a bike. Our family had an annual biking vacation. While the bikes I rode would make Jake shudder (most came from walmart), I was able to do the normal kid tricks. Look ma, no hands!

Now that we have those facts out of the way, let’s begin.

Fresh outta college, obstacle races were the thing to do. Tough mudder, zombie 5k, I even once ran through a corn maze. So when the Urban Assault Challenge came to the Twin Cities, naturally I signed up. The gist of the this challenge was a duo would bike ride 20-some miles through the metropolitan area and periodically stop to complete challenges. Big wheel relay, egg & spoon while biking, that sort of thing. As all obstacle races, at the end you were rewarded with beer.

Now, I’m pretty sure whether we’ve met or not, you know I would do a lot for a beer.

Not even two miles into this challenge, my front tire hit a good ol’ minnesota pothole. You know the kind, could eat a civic and not even suffer indigestion. So my tire hits the pothole, on a downhill of all times and I get bucked right over my handlebars. I did an admirable impression of stone skipping on water, but with my arm and chest on the asphalt. Ten out of ten would not recommend.

I didn’t touch a bike for almost 10 years after that. Jake convinced me after we started dating to rent a city bike in order to brewery hop in Phoenix. I didn’t die as I had expected and have hesitantly biked when beer has been on the line a few times since.

Skip to present and we were sitting in a quirky pink coffee shop in the middle of Idaho when I randomly asked Jake if he had an interest in bikepacking the Mesabi Trail later that summer in Minnesota. While he didn’t fall out of his chair, he did ask me to repeat what I had said, twice.

Why, you ask? I liked the idea of doing as much of the Minnesota portion of the North Country Trail as I could milk outta our time while we were in the area. This year I have also been pushing my comfort zone, doing more technical peak bagging (still don’t enjoy them) and thought a nice flat, paved trail would be Sandra-friendly.

Jake was giddy with excitement. We did the greenbelt in Boise with me on his very nice (read: expensive) mountain bike in order to “get used to a real bike” in preparation for the future trip. I was gaining confidence and was getting rather excited for the experience.

Halfway through our stay in Bend, I suggested we bike the river trail through town to brewery-hop per usual. Again, Jake had me on the nice bike while he handled Leinie on the beach cruiser. We had just enjoyed our first beer stop at the turn around point and were en route to a happy hour at the next brewery. We were cruising down the one downhill portion of the entire trail and I felt my hat start to fly off my head.

So I tapped the break. Yes, the rear tire break, I did grow up biking. Regardless, the next thing I know is I am flying ass over tea kettle and felt my face bounce off the asphalt.

Yes, again! And there wasn’t even a crack in the path to explain how I managed to do it. Jake and Leinie come running back. I am bleeding from both hands, a wrist and face. My faithful patagonia sweater saved my arm skin. Both legs felt sucker punched. I looked absolutely delightful as tears and snot mixed with the gash on my face. Stay back fellas, I’m taken.

I hobbled to a public restroom to wash as much blood away as I could and wrapped the worst cut on my right hand in toilet paper in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. Jake and Leinie led my hobbling ass to a local tavern where I soothed my aches with three Hamms tall boys. Yes, three, I think I earned it.

The van was too far away to walk, so I gathered what was left of my shaking nerves and mounted the very mean bike again (the cruiser's seat was too high for me, and we had no tools to fix it) and rode to another brewery. I drank another two beers while Jake finished the last few miles to bring the van to me.

And just to ensure my pride was completely shattered, fate decided that I should slip trying to get out of the van and I fell and twisted my bad ankle to boot not even two hours later. Jake is currently researching helmets while I nurse road rash, a swollen ankle and a heavily bruised ego.