Ouch!

Out for another awesome Wednesday night ride with the Bicycle Emporium crew...a new guy to the group ride shows up on his brand new bike...le'ts call him Jason.  Jason is a cool guy who is working hard keeping up on the climbs like a champ.  All is going well until we get to a steep gorge that required hiking down, crossing a rocky stream and hiking up. the other side.  A number of us had already crossed, and some were in the process of crossing when we heard a yell, combined with the sound of falling rocks, snapping branches and rustling leaves...followed buy a thud.  Jason had fallen down the steep ravine to the river bed nearly 40 feet below.  Rather than go into too much detail, lets just say we got to him quick as we could and were relieved to find he was not too badly hurt.  A ton of sticker bush scratches, a bruised leg, and a bad headache (and likely a concussion).  We helped him up to the trail and a few people stayed with him the 2 miles out to a road where a truck was waiting to get him up the hill.  So all is well it would seem, then to top it off, I got a 2nd wind going up Stagecoach (2 mile doubletrack climb) and surged ahead of a bunch of guys that are clearly better riders than I.  I never am one to try and show anyone up, but I could not believe my pace on the SS as I had fallen back, then caught everyone...so I just kept it going to the top of the trail and the extra 2.5 miles back to the shop.  It was cool to get some props from the other riders for my climb...good guys, strong riders...I just had a good climb (honestly did not know I had it in me).
Anyway, the lesson learned here is to ALWAYS wear your helmet, and you even when tired, just keep pedaling and good things may happen (that is kinda my riding mantra).

The outer view of Jason's helmet...yeah, it saved his skull for sure.

You can see where his helmet broke in four places from the impact.

Nothing to do with riding, but here is the honey I was hanging with this weekend.  Wood never looked so good!