My First Mountain Bike Ride

So, long time no post.

I guess it's been a little average - nothing exciting I felt like was worth posting.

I wish I had kept blogging all the way through, but I guess no major breakthroughs, just little realisations.  Which probably would have been good to record, but oh well.

Also, I always find the months of October / November such a struggle, waiting, wanting a new start to the year.  Everything feels so tiresome.  Also, I got sick and between that and feeling tired, have sort of dropped off for the last month.

BUT, last weekend I accomplished my first mountain bike ride.

It was pretty cool.

Not "the most fun ever" as other people have said, but I guess it's hard to have "the most fun ever" doing something that you've never done before and involving skill and experience.

I think our bike shop friends were a bit surprised that I wasn't like IT WAS THE BEST FUN EVER.

We went down the Loftus with a bunch of friends for a roll.

I wore my least worn jersey (I don't wear this one - even though it's pink - because it's so baggy and especially around the arms, which sort of made it perfect for mountain biking).

I put on lycra knicks / pants - as padded pants are the bomb.  

And I don't have any padded shorts yet.  Although, I'm already eyeing off Dharco clothing..

I put on long socks as people talk about the scratching etc from the twigs and branches and I thought that might help.  Plus, I like cycling in long socks. 

I packed my camelbak and patch kit.

On greeting the group, one of my friends said, "oh.. you're going to clip in..."

My husband had said this to me yesterday.

When 2 people do something, I interpret that as EVERYBODY.
2 people = everyone.

To which I started to get paranoid and freak out about why EVERYONE kept exclaiming that - perhaps I was being an idiot and I had made things harder for myself.

Then I realised I had forgotten to put a Garmin mount on the bike so had to try and fit it in my camelbak without pressing any of the buttons..
Husband said there should be a screen lock function.

I couldn't find it.

I could feel my nerves and emotions rising.

So, I told my husband, "I'm freaking out".

And then I proceeded to shout frustratedly some blaming statements at my husband about how he didn't prepare me for mountain biking at all.

To which he didn't respond and just stayed very very quiet until I moved my focus onto something else.
(Which was quite nice of him as I was entirely being unreasonable and irrational).

So we started to roll.

It was fine.

My friend said that sometimes it's good to have a foot ready to put down, but it's not all the time.

I clipped out when I felt like I might need to stop.  Mostly the narrow and curvy bits.

I had borrowed the Liv Lust Advanced 2 demo bike, which is AMAZING.  

It has these huge fat wheels (so much rolling over everything and anything) and it's made out of carbon (oh so light).

It's "dual suspension" (like, on the front and back).  As opposed to a "hard tail".

I keep calling it a "soft bottom" which sounds not quite as refined...  :)

I had received a lot of tips for cycling and it was interesting to apply them in the context of mountain biking:

1.  Look where you want to go and the bike will follow.

This became much more obvious in mountain biking than road cycling.

There's a bit in Blair Witch that turns right really abruptly and both times we did it, I ended up too wide and had to stop.

I realised it was because I kept getting to that point and missing the right turn so ended up looking at the front "oh look, that's where I don't want to go" and would just ride straight into the corner.

There was a lot of space in that corner, so I'm guessing I wasn't the only person who did that!

2.  Lean, don't steer.

I seem to have forgotten this one the whole time.

Probably because the trees felt so narrow, how could I possibly lean!

But the tread on the mountain bike tyres are made for leaning - they have tread all the way up the sides.

I think there was a third point but I can't remember it any more.

Anyway, so there was a lot of rest breaks where we stood and talked, which was:

a) quite fun

b) a good rest because there's a such an energy output - very different to road cycling.

So it was pretty cool and different and interesting.

I fell towards the end, through a very technical bit (very narrow and twisty).

The trees in that section had been burnt, so they were blacked and sticking upwards.

I named it The Blackened Shards of Hell.

I probably fell because fear took over.

The style of cornering was a little like the yellow bollards on Anzac Pde / Allison Rd (my nemesis) that I feel fear every time I come up to it.

So I fell and my friends checked to see if I was ok.

Which I was.

Although, my thumb was in a bit of pain from being jammed between the bike and a tree, so I screamed silently for a bit..

Got back on the bike.

Then I fell again.

This time my bike was up the slope and I was down the slope and I couldn't unclip.

I just lay there laughing hysterically (like a turtle that can't flip over - although they probably don't laugh) until my friends could undo my shoe.

After that I thought I was pretty tired so we went for a little longer and then went back to the cars.

Will I be buying a mountain bike?
Probably not soon.  Maybe in the future.

If I did though, I would totally buy the Liv Lust - my friend said it's pretty good value.

The dual suspension and huge fat tires, made me feel really confident (even as a beginner) that I would be fine just rolling over everything (as long as I kept pedalling).

My other friend also had great advice in that, there's no point buying a stiff bottom hard tail bike to learn skills.  You might as well get the dual suspension / dualie and make it fun as you learn.

My husband and the bike shop agreed.
A while back, the dualies didn't have sophisticated suspension and you lost a lot of power, but nowadays, you can maintain the power whilst still having the comfort and benefits of the dual suspension.

I also got previous advice from the bike shop in that a mountain bike is an investment and you should be prepared to drive a while to go mountain biking, which is very different from road cycling where you just hop on your bike and go.

So, probably not a new avenue for me right now.  

To be honest, I'm at a stagnant point of my cycling and I feel like introducing another genre wouldn't be a great idea while I'm feeling so lethargic.  

Also, I'm not a HUGE fan of nature and the bush..  City girl at heart.

November really tired me out with work and I was off the road bike for about a month and a half and I feel like I've lost a lot of fitness.

Over this Christmas period, I'm planning to cycle as much as I can to get back into the routine, ready for 2015!

I will see if I remember other things that happened to me recently to write up.