War Story
Category – Crash
Location – Nashua, NH
Bike – Klein Palomino

About 8 years ago, riding buddy George, my husband and I went for a winter mtb ride one cold, icy day in a local park. The trails were ice covered so we were all riding with studded tires.
The trail was cut into the side of steep hill above a pond. There was a slight incline, then the trail did a steep dip down and an equally steep sweep up. Normally, if you got a good head of speed going down, you just let momentum carry you 90% up the other side, then with a couple of strong cranks & you were up and over. Well, George went flying down into the dip and was headed up the other side with me about 10 feet behind him. When he got to the part where a couple strong cranks were needed, he cranked, but his studded tires just spun out on the ice. He came to a stop and slipped backwards – right into me. We both went down, tangled in the bikes, sliding backwards towards the edge of the trail. He grabbed a tree and we stopped. I yelled back to my husband to stop!, but it was too late, he was already headed down the dip. He tried to stop, but just slid down the hill and piled right into us.

We all lay there for a minute laughing, then carefully untangled, slipping and sliding on the ice. George tried to walk up the steep, slick trail, but couldn't get traction on the ice & kept slipping back into us. Finally, he said to hold onto his bike and he grabbed the trees on the side of the trail and by stepping on some stones sticking up through the ice, pulled himself up the to the top of the trail. He held onto to a tree, reached down as far as he could and we slid his bike on it’s side up the icy trail so he was able to grab the front tire and pull it up. We pushed my bike & my husband’s bike up the same way. Then using the trees on the side of the trail, we climbed out too.