No, this book does not tell you everything a Blackberry® can do. Read on.





Oh fate, how we tempt thee. Who will I be with? Where will I be? How will it happen when it all goes bad? If you push the envelope in outdoor sports, eventually something will bite you. We willingly expose ourselves to the risks, because the cost of not doing the things we love is too great a price. What about the cost of other things we do to ourselves? Hard living. What is the cost of an outdoor industry trade show, for example? Last night, those questions were answered for me. This time, at exactly the same moment.

The threat of something very bad happening always requires great commitment to thwart. They are all-or-nothing times. How often have we told ourselves "You better jump all the way across that thing or it will end in disaster", or "Whatever you do, don't touch the brakes", or "Throw your whole body forward or else... or else.. just make sure you project yourself". Last night, as I rode my single speed alone into the most technical trail in the nearby woods, I came to one of those situations. Merrily dancing and bumping my way up a gradual singletrack climb, I approached a more treacherous, man made wooden ladder. I have ridden this ladder many times over the years, always with the conviction that I would summon whatever it required to get up and across it. It's very narrow, hardly more than a few tire-widths. It's also steep, climbing high over body-snapping boulders. Good stuff. On a single speed, it all has to come together just right.

Finally excersising after a 10 day hiatus, I felt a wee noodly. Every time I tried to gun it, my engine would miss. No torque. How would that effect me, with the ladder coming up? "Commit. It has to be full on. Just pin it.", I told myself. Then it was there, in front of me. I lined up, hitting one last big rock as I entered the wooden sticks. "Ooh.. that last rock took something out of me.." I thought, twisting my body's throttle wide open. "Move! Shoot this thing!" I pleaded. No torque. It was happening. What I had always dreaded but never believed possible: I was not going to make it.

Like an aircraft losing an engine and stalling on takeoff, my 29" front wheel bobbed left, then right, and then... I was motionless. Clawing, helpless, only air to grab onto. All those beers, last week. The late nights. The Led Zeppelin lookalikes concert. The shots of Patron. The hours of standing and the sweltering, potato chip eating drive home. This is how I would pay. This moment, and everything that came from it, would be my price. Mere pedal strokes from making it, and yet... I would not. Now I would fall. I would fall for a long time. It began so slowly. I looked around and below me like a mortally wounded sword fighter looks at a blade run through their vitals.

The impact, at least between my ears, sounded like a Volkswagen Beetle had been dropped from a helicopter high above the forest. Before the dust settled, a sadness swept over me. I knew, instinctively, that something very bad happened to my body. I once snapped my leg, coming off of a bike at speed in the forest. It needed to be screwed back together with allen bolts. I'd all but forgotten that experience. Until now. I had just sustained a 90 degree impact with solid objects. The worst angle possible.

I lay there in my crumpled body. My right arm passed under my chest, taught ligaments oddly suspending my hand and wrist. Those were not broken, I knew that. Laying completely still, my eyes were open, unblinking. Staring. There was no air in my lungs. Suffocating, I waited for the tsunami of pain to rip through me. I watched blood drip quickly off of my pinky finger. It made a penetrating divot as the dry earth drank ravenously everything I fed it. Perfect silence, now. Where was that wave of pain. "Please.. it's taking too long." I thought. Usually the longer it takes, the worse it is when it arrives.

My breath came back in chokes and grunts. Still, no movement. Seconds turned into minutes. I twitched my foot. "I'm not paralized. I don't understand.. my leg and hip have to be broken. My god... this is going to f^+Ki*! hurt, soon." I knew this, because the blunt-force impact at the top of my femur was the most severe I had ever experienced. Mother E had called a bone-crusher meeting, one-on-one. I pictured my femur completely seperated from it's ball. I moved it one millimeter. Nothing. Four millimeters. Nothing. "It's going to snap. I know it."

Ever so slowly, I shuddered into a sitting position. The 700mph tidal wave of excrutiation never arrived. I had holes in me, and I was losing precious red oil pressure, but I could not believe I was not broken. "This is an absolute miracle. It's just not possible." Hobbling toward the trail, I felt more like Highlander than myself. Then, I felt something loose against the top of that right femur, against the ball joint. I reached down and touched it. "Nooo waaay.. noo way!". My Blackberry®, the cellular brunt of joke and mobile warrior, had been situated at precisely the spot where that boulder with the ball peen hammer protrusion drove into me. I unzipped my shorts and removed it. As a stinkbug spills it's guts to a heavily placed boot, my Blackberry® dispersed the impact across it's entire exoskeleton, gushing its bowels into my pocket. Blackberry® juice.

On the ride home, I stopped in a grove of trees where I sometimes see great horned owls perched. I sucked on my pinky and licked the puncture wounds that I could reach. I called to the owls. "Whoooooooo. Wherrrrrrre. Howwwwwwww." There was no answer.