Skydiving is safer than Mountain Biking!

A bunch of my friends went skydiving today and busted 150 bucks.
I went mountain biking instead and busted my face!

I hope everyone had fun skydiving and I want to see the pictures, but I was just kind of struck with the fact that a sport's reputation doesn't make it safe! As far as face busting goes, I am fortunate that I did not bust my neck instead.)
Atop Raccoon Mountain, the four of us set up our mountain bikes and discuss which trail we want to ride. Easy? Hard? Steep? Technical? Michael, Jonathan, Steve and I finally come to a consensus. We decide for the Technical and the Hard and head out. After a few wrong turns, some tough uphill pulls, and some amazing views of the Tennessee River Gorge we are finally ready for a descent. The descent proves to give quite an adrenaline rush! The trail winds in and out down a ravine and crisscrosses it several times so that it is like a roller coaster. To add to the roller coaster effect there is also a double black diamond effect in which I feel like I am skiing through a glade, but with no snow to catch me. The trail shoots me between trees so close together that I am sure the handlebars are going to snag a tree and send me and my bike spinning into one of the nearby rocks. In retrospect I can't but help wondering at the amazing reflexes that God built into our bodies! Mike stops in front of me as he walks his bike down a 4 foot drop off. After asking Mike about the nature of his side of the obstacle I decided to try riding it down. I would have expected to have things happen in slow motion here, but the next thing I felt was my face giving a nice smooch to the trail. I lay for a while regathering my senses and feeling a slight ache in my head. "That was scary!" was my thought. Fortunately for me the trail consisted of decomposed leaves and was very soft and forgiving. That obstacle didn't work out for me so well! On the way back, Jon and Steve took a different trail and I followed Mike over a series of jumps that required reverberating shouts of "Whoo-Hooo!!". All in All it was an excellent use of the 45 minutes that it took us to go 6 miles, and I learned that Mountain Biking can be more dangerous than Skydiving. All of us were quite hungry when we returned. I ate two servings of pasta, some tater tots, broccoli, and an enormous PB and J Sandwich. Time to get back to a scheduled life and put the relaxing weekend to a purposeful task!