On Sunday I was due to meetup with peeps from the Philadelphia Mountain Bike Association for a casual ride through the Wissahicken. It wasn't billed as a beginner ride, but one of the guys signed up for it offered to ride his single speed bike and show me the ropes and stay behind and ride with me. Sweet! Sunday comes around and I get a message from the organizer that the ride is canceled since the lock on his shed froze and was unable to get him bike out of his shed. Me and other dude decided to go out anyway despite the weather (super windy, snow, high of 27).
I took the 9 bus out to the meeting spot and met Brett and we started to ride. I was immediately apprehensive about riding on trails. I hadn't ridden my mtb all that much so I was still getting used to how it handled and I was clipped in to boot so not being able to put my feet down without clipping out made me nervous. I think I was expecting a lot more dirt trails, but these had a lot more rocks, logs, obtacles to maneuver around/over. And hills, stupid hills, ugh. I had to walk my bike up a few because they were so steep and I just didn't have the power or control to get up them. I could hardly imagine running up some of those hills let along ride a bike up them. Going downhill was scary and I had to get over my fear of falling and just take my time. Brett said with my black jacket and green bike I looked like a turtle going downhill, but slow and steady wins the race right? After about 30 minutes, I relaxed a bit and realized my bike could handle the trails and I wasn't going to bite it going over every rock and I started riding a lot looser. The next hour+ was tough, but super fun. My legs were Jell-O by the end.
I would never been able to do this without Brett's help. Turns out he is quite an accomplished cyclist and works in a bike stop so it was like I had my own personal lesson for a little under 2 hours, sweet! He gave me a lot of great advice for mtbing and I can even manage a tiny bunnyhop. Who wants to go out and ride one of these weekends?
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