Friday, September 28, 2012

Here's a bike: Go Ride

Weird time to start a blog about my attempts at being a mountain bike racer, seeing as last Sunday was my last series race.... But I'm going to make a go at it, maybe document training or lack of training and attempts at staying fit over the winter and prepping for the next summer.

Anyways, here goes nothing.

I started mountain biking five-ish years ago.  A guy I was dating was big into it and I'm super athletic and he wanted me to ride with him so he bought me a bike.  Lucky me!  My first time out was a dewy dreary morning with Chris and Carl (Carl was the guy).  I had a hard time keeping up, specially as where we were riding at the Camden Snowbowl is a ski slope, small but very technical climbs, about 800 or 900 feet elevation gain from base to top.  I took my time as it had been YEARS since I'd been on a bike and was just getting the shifting and such while trying to maneuver tight uphill switchbacks, rocks, and roots.  Finally we cut across the mountain and I was able to keep up a little bit better.  Then we came into a bunch of bridges.  I fell off the first bridge I went over luckily for me there was no water running and it wasn't very high up.  From that point on I tried not to be scared of them but they did freak me out a little bit.  I had fallen several times and just gotten back on the bike and kept going, I was determined to not let this mountain biking beat me.  Then came "the bridge"  it crossed a stream and was about three feet above the ground.  Remember how I mentioned that it was "dewy"?  Well I hit this bridge after a small down slope and wiped out on the bridge.  The rear wheel came out from under me slid off the bridge and I went sliding across the bridge.  Carl and Chris ahead of me heard me go down and came back to check on me.  I gashed my shin on the edge of the bridge and ripped open the side of one of my hands from the pinky to my wrist.  I got up much slower than the other falls.  They asked me if I was okay, I of course said that I was.  Chris offered me one of his gloves and I used it for a little bit but it was "A" WAY to big for me and "B" got just as slippery from the blood still coming from my new wound.  I had said I was okay, but really my shins and knees had taken quite a beating and finally I had to admit that I was hurting and ready to be done for the day.  The guys understood and told me I was a trooper for that being my first ride.

Even with my first ride on a bike going spectacularly awful, I fell in love with a new sport.  That relationship ended but it gave me a love deeper than I had experienced since gymnastics, a love for single track, the outdoors, hard falls, and two wheels with a self propelled motor.


Peace::Love::Pedal Grease

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