Connector Curse

So Saturday Nic and I did make it out to Kettle’s. The plan was simple. Get there early knock out the John Muir Trail, hit up the connector trail, burn around the Emma Carlin and make it back to the car after a couple of hours of sweet single track riding at a moderate tempo. I gave Nic my predictions of his mass improvement since his last visit there. It was reasonable prediction.

By 8 AM the parking lot was busy with with activity. We suited up and rolled out at a good tempo. The trail conditions and weather was perfect, tacky tracks and sunny high 50′s with warmer weather coming. The twitchy-ness was gone from Lake Geneva and the legs were warming up well. After about 27 minutes we burn past the 5 mile mark and are heading to the connector trail. I comment to Nic how I don’t dislike the first section of field as most people complain about this section of the connector. This field portion has winding tracks cut into the prairie that are on average 8 inches wide with mostly sand for a base. Some sections are thinner and some sections are beaten down and rutted at least 6 inches in spots with high walls on either side.

I’m enjoying the view, Nics busy confusing field mice with Chipmunks and M Ef’n me about why anyone would actually enjoy this section of the connector and about 3/4 of a mile into the trail I hear him hit the dirt from behind me………….hard. I’m thinking that it can’t be that bad as there was 1. Nothing to fall over, 2. Nothing to hit short of grass, light sand,or a small rodent and 3. there’s at least another 16 miles to go before we’re done.

I keep riding against his protest and try to yell back that it’s a one way trail and I’ll have to go all the way around without being in direct connector trail rule violation. After all rules are rules. A few minutes (35-40) later I can start to hear his cries for help again and I realize that I’m once again closing in on his location. He’s still laying under his bike like he’s Cliff Burton pinned under a tour bus. He’s yelling something about his leg and I see that he’s got a good sized gash in his left thigh just over his knee cap. The gash was gnarly. At least 4 inches long and possible 3/4 of an inch in depth. What to do?? That’s right, load him on the bike and let’s roll out. Luckily we didn’t have too far to get back to the road plus this allowed Nic an opportunity to work on his one legged spins. We hann’elt it and made it back to the car in short order.

Apparently the nearest qualified hospital is 14 miles out in Ft. Atkinson. Make it to the Fort and he was their patient of the day which worked out well. PA Rachel hemmed up 5 internal stitches and 9 external stitches and sent him on his way. It now looks something like this:

Although we initially thought that the injury was a direct result of a calculated cold blooded Chipmunk attack we found large samples of Nic’s DNA aboard the item that did him in, the underside of a brake lever mount.

Yup….Sha Nasty. Wish him well.