I'm too old for this shit.

*Update July 1st/08. Knight from Knights Ramblings asked for a picture of my injury. Here you go, hope you enjoy!
The skill of riding a bicycle is never forgotten. Once you've built the neural pathways in your head, you can always just get on a bike and ride.

That doesn't mean that you can't get rusty, which I found out the hard way yesterday.

A friend of mine called me up and said "hey, let's go mountain biking!" and I said "Great Idea!"

So, I dusted off the old Rockhopper, sped off down the road and met him near his place.

The first thing I'd like to affirm is the extreme benefits of not smoking. I haven't had a cigarette for almost three years now. However, I smoked like a fiend the ten years before that. And for the better part of those ten years, one of my favorite hobbies was mountain biking.

The first ride of the season was the worst. Halfway though I'd be huffing, puffing, trying desperately to get my lungs to inflate from being welded shut from a winters full of tobacco smoke abuse. It was so bad asthmatics were throwing their inhalers at me telling me I needed it more then them. I even got offers of oxygen from those fat old people on scooters. Yea, it was bad.

Not this time around. It's been years since I've been on that thing, and I was peddling away like it was nobodies business, and nary a flung inhaler came my way.

Kiddies, if you are a dirty fag sucker, quit now, right now. Trust me, you'll thank me for it later.

My friend and I hit some nearby trails to test out our prowess. We went in like lions but came out like pussycats. Well, not so much him but me.

See, I had a little accident while trying to ride over a log. It was wet, the ground was muddy, and the log moved under my bicycle unexpectedly. My wheel caught in the log, throwing the bike to the ground. I went with it as my shoe didn't want to come out of the toe clip, and two-hundred pounds of Mike came crashing down hard, gut first into the very (sharp) end of the handlebar.

And it hurt.

Boy, did it ever hurt. I got my foot out of the toeclip, and walked around, limping, clutching my gut, and making the guy hurt face. You know the face, the one where you are hurting like hell but you don't want to show it but you can't help scrunching up your face while you're walking around saying "that stings a little, let me walk it off".
Kind of like that. Except I'm not black. And my teeth are straight. But you get the picture.

Two things happened right at that moment. I was breathing very hard, because I was just jabbed in the gut with a small object with the possible force of a 1969 Buick Roadmaster. And I was in a bitchin amount of pain (I've got a nice bloody circle of torn skin with a really deep bruise, probably on my kidney), I got nauseous.

My buddy was chatting away verbally, and inside I was repeating over and over don't puke don't puke don't puke don't puke don't puke don't puke don't puke....

Never, EVER chant don't puke to yourself when you're feeling sick. That ASSURES you vomit.

And vomit I did. I vomited nicely if I do say so. Not as nicely as this, but it was pretty good if I do say so myself.



After I was done, we decided to call it quits and head back to his place for a beer. I had to fill my now empty stomach with something, didn't i!

There is a moral to this story. I came back learning two things:
1. Quiting those dirty fags was the best thing I ever did
2. I'm no longer an invincible teenager and I need to work into things.

But hey, at least I learned, right?

==============

If you liked the above, you might also like

Dirty Fag Suckers
Penis Library
Fibre is your friend?
2008 Resolutions
What NOT to say to a woman