No.4 the year 2014 - my first full suspension mountain bike

I was hooked, mountain biking became a part of my life. I had made new friends and said goodbye to my old life. The business was picking up, i was paying the bills, i wasnt drinking anymore, my son loved spending weekends with me, life was finally starting to look good, i could see a way to go, i had a goal. And after riding a friends full suspension bike, that goal was to get one ! 

I had been accepted for finance for the 1st time in my life and i brought a brand new kona tannuki in green. 

I was made up, my first full suspension mountain bike. Trips to degla became a fortnightly thing and even started to find new places like Gisburn. I had started to get confident and soon followed some broken bones. I had had a couple offs involving broken ribs and broken fingers as i tried to ride as fast as others and hit some jumps. Mountain biking was my thing ! It was great i loved it.

And i soon pushed that love onto my now 5 year old and i got him a Spezialized hotrock 20” for his birthday in may. 

Helmet ready, bag packed with sweets ready, bike ready ....... and i took my 5 year old son to degla ! 

I was not prepared for the amount of moaning i was to endure on this day 😞 i had finally started to gain some fitness and was pedalling up the climb myself at degla now at a slow pace. On this day i had to walk 2 bikes up 🙈😆 i think i knew from this point that my skinny tall full of energy son would not be an xc rider just like his dad, we walked. But as soon as it started to point downhill (on the blue) he was terrified ....... but he loved it and wanted to go back. Phew ! And daddy can still ride his bike on Daddy / Son weekends now 😁👍 Bonus ! 

After a great summer i started to get brave and tried to hit some big jumps, back at our local track Bickerstaff there is a 18ft table top, its on a slight angle not straight and prob not the best jump to learn on but it was the only one near us that was a step up from what i was doing, turns out it was too much of a step up for my skill set. Nov 2014 i was hitting the jump and landing on top like normal when someone said just pedal and let go of the fear and hit it, so i did. Not sure how i let go of my fears but this one run towards the jump i felt this was it, im getting over this sucker now. 

I didnt, i went faster and higher than i had ever been but i clipped the landing with my front wheel sideways and got thrown over the bars at an alarming speed towards the floor, 10ft to the floor onto my head and shoulder. 

I woke up with people stood over me and i knew straight away something was badly wrong, i could not move my right arm, at all. It wouldn’t even flinch a couple mm there was no signal from my brain going to my arm or fingers. yes the bike was ok haha but a trip to A&E confirmed i was not, i had a concusion which we knew but i had broken my shoulder twice and broke 3 ribs. The flowing few months involved no bike riding for me 😩 

But i was not deterred away from mountain biking, by this time it was part of me i was hooked and looked forward to the moment i could ride again, November and December was a real struggle for me, running a business that required driving vans and living alone proved to be one of the hardest things to do both physically and mentally. 

That concludes 2014, lets move on to the recovery. What will 2015 bring my way ?