Groan. After camp I'm tired, my body hurts, my brain is spinning. I put a
ride on the club calendar for tonight, knowing that getting out is a good
thing, much better than laying around downing vitamin I.
So off to the technical trails. I'm excited to try and apply some things,
more than anything just to hit the trail I know so well, keep my confidence
intact. One guy shows up, nice small group. I must be known as the club
lady: the guy from the local race group called me and wanted to know about
trees down in the area from the 80 mph winds we had last week....
Feels great ! The sky is broken up with evening poofy clouds, and the temp
is perfect. Sure enough, trees down, make note to self. push bike through
the weeds to get around them. Ted is following me. For myself, I already
know what lines I'm going to take, in my head so I take every technical line
option there is. I need to do this, I got pretty beat up in Canada and I
must assert myself. It gets interesting, this guy says he wants to stay
behind me to see what rocks I ride ( yeah, right ;-) ) as he's not done
some of the lines. Ok, whatever you say. Nothing big, mind you, just
rollable steep small ledges etc. Dam, it feels good. Trying something
new: standing a little taller on the pedals, a wider stance - floating.
Onto the switchbacks. Ted is talking to me, I'm trying to focus and miss my
line a little but hotdog if I don't nail the (no longer) elusive third one,
yay!!
Just feels so good to get the blood pumping again. I've been out on so many
beginner rides lately ( which is a good thing) and then camp, the flow is
.....well, flow.
On the way down back to the trail head, a two mile descent with lots of
banked corners, S-curves and switch backs, I slow down a bit and again try
put my new learnings into effect. So, instead of steering the bike through
the corners, I'm trying for the lean, the bike/body separation, the
angulation... funny how I have the same thing to work on in skiing.. I'll
get it, I know but which way does the bike go? Into or out of the turn? Heh,
try it both ways, that answers that.
Classic move in the parking lot. As I'm racking the bike into the tray on my
wagon, the bike slips and I drop it on my head. With an audience. Good thing
I had my helmet on. Some drunk in the parking lot offers to help, but I
kindly inform him that any girl who can't rack her own bike is worthless,
and proceed to take my helmet off and do it right the second time around.
~penny