Last weekend, Mark, Andy and I rode the Fages Monument Loop near Cuyamaca. Actually, we did it combined with the Cuyamaca Grand Loop and it was totally hard and epic. Six hours on a mountain bike with 7,000 feet of climbing – zowie! One exciting moment was when I crashed in a steep section while descending a rocky canyon. It was the typical crash formula:

Uh Oh: Those rock steps look steep, but I can do it if I just go slowly.
All of a sudden: Front tire locks up at the bottom of a big rock and my back tire came off the ground. Yeah, this is going to suck…
Slow-mo part: I’m going over the handlebars, where should I land?
Did anyone see? I was basically OK, but damn – I cracked my Gamin computer!

It still worked, but had a big crack in the display. So, on Monday, I called Garmin and they’re shipping me a new unit for not very much money. They even figured out a way to send me the new unit before I send the broken one back so I won’t miss any training days. What great service! I’ve been using the cracked unit this week while I wait for the new one to arrive.

Threatening skies today prompted me to grab my jacket on the way out for my ride. Sure enough, with two intervals left to go, rain drops began splattering down. And that’s when I realized that my normally waterproof Garmin would probably die since the crack in the display would allow water to get inside the unit. Uh oh – that means no data for Coach Colin!

I remembered the ziploc bag where I keep my wallet and iPhone and got an idea – I could use the bag to protect the Garmin and put my jacket on to protect my unshielded iPhone in my jersey pocket. Except the jersey I had on was just enough longer than my jacket that iPhone would still get wet… Crap, now what do I do?

1. Let my Garmin die a watery death and fail to submit numbers to Coach Colin?!?!
2. Risk having my iPhone, arguably the coolest piece of technology ever get fried!?!?

It started to rain harder. What would you do?

I took this photo with my iPhone – got lucky I guess

Which is better – crossing a cattle guard at 8mph while climbing or at 39.7mph on the descent?

I think it’s best at slow speeds.  My bike gets all hobbly-wobbly, the tires feel only half-inflated and I worry about falling over and disappearing into the grate who’s bars now seems to be more than 2 feet apart.  Plus, you get for one short second, the barest idea of what it might be like to ride the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix.

All you get from zipping over them at 39.7mph is a brief, “Oh god, I hope this works!” moment and then ZZIIP, you’re done.

But enough of my opinion, you decide