I'm supposed to actually ride over that?!!!!!!

Getting ready to ride














Can you tell I'm nervous?

Jason studying the map trying to figure out

where we missed the trail turnoff about 5 miles
in

I'm still alive but do have a cut on

my right ankle from catching it on

a pedal--ouch

James on his new bike

Rest break after coming up this........















Which is steeper than it appears











This is part of what we still have to go up













King of the hill
















Just thought this was pretty















Wheee!!!!






















Having fun--yes, I was the only one in the group
that wore a helmet.















After the ride--we're working on Brian to quit
again


I survived my first ever attempt at mountain biking and even had a lot of fun in the process. This is something that was completely new to me, never rode a bicycle as a kid, never been on a dirt bike so had absolutely no experience with getting up and over obstacles on 2 wheels. Legs are all bruised up mostly from my feet slipping off the pedals. Very timid in the beginning, so was doing a lot of walking the first 1.5 miles but I was determined I wasn't going to slow the guys down too much. Oh yeah, I ended up being the only girl-Petra's wrist was still sore from a rollerblading incident a few weeks ago.

The downhills spooked me so I never truly let the bicycle build up to full speed. Just handled it like you would a big truck going down a hill, slowed down to the speed I wanted to go before starting the descent. James on the other hand is a speed demon with the downhills, he was having a blast!! Jason of course was the experienced mountain biker, he pretty much was having to wait on the rest of us. I know his secret though, he would blast up the hills and then have time to catch his breath before we caught up so it would seem like he wasn't having to work at all, LOL. Uphills is where I would usually catch and pass Brian and James especially towards the end--I have more endurance from the road biking and running. Now I know why Lisa M. from the Cabot Cruisers is sooooo strong climbing the hills on a road bike.

Switchbacks are another problem area for me. Going downhill I would occasionally lose my balance and have the back end of the bicycle kick out on me--never wrecked but had to grab a tree once to keep from wiping out. Brian did wipe out once that I know of in the same situation. Uphill switchbacks would also slow me down and there were a couple of places that had rocks in the turns that usually ended up with me walking.

After the ride we decided to play 9 holes of disc golf, Cedar Glades has a very challenging course but it was a nice change from our flat course. On one of the holes I ended up throwing my disc across a creek so had to take off my shoes and socks to wade across. While I was over there, James and Jason both threw their discs INTO the water. Since I was already over there I went ahead and retrieved their discs. Jason's wasn't bad to get to but James' was in a deep part--would have been waist deep on me. Jason passed me a very big branch so that I could use it to drag the disc into shallower water--he should have some very good pictures of me attempting to get to it.