My Second Trail Ride

Yesterday I went out for another circuit trail ride, but this time with my friend Zac. It was a pretty good, ride. Zac felt much of the pain I felt last time. Not quite in riding shape, not quite used to the terrain. A little painful on the legs and lungs, but when you get to that occasional stretch where you can cruise, feel in control, hits some bumps...Feeling like you are flying through the bush, you realize this is great fun and feels fantastic. (tomorrow your body may disagree however;) It makes you want more.

It was good to have someone along for the ride. In fact, it paid huge dividends later on. (you'll see how in a bit)

I still have few moments where, I had to dismount in a hurry, so to speak, but it better than the first time. Still not at the level that I'd like to be, but I guess I'm improving. There is one brutal hill, that hopefully I'll be able to ride all the way up with out getting off my bike, but I'm going to give my self a few (like 10) more rides until I start to feel defeated with that. It is steep, and pretty rocky/rough, so it also helps to pick the correct line, so you don't end up trying to go straight up a rock.

I still have the occasional moment of what I call tentative aggressiveness, which is very bad. It puts in no-man lands, if you are going to go for a jump, etc, you need to go all out. To start, and then say, uh, well, maybe I should take it a bit slower, uh, maybe a lot slower, is a recipe for not very positive out comes. So I was coming down this hill, and there was a series of S turns, it was fun, I was cruising, then there was a section sort of bounded by trees, that let in to a rocky (but small drop off) followed by another turn. SO I was cruising, and about halfway though these turns, my tentativeness kicked in, not quite sure what happened but basically jumped off my bike while trying lay the bike down as gently as possible. I my rear wheel, must have hit a rock perfectly as the wheel came off the frame ( I don't think the quick-release were as tight as they were supposed to do). After investigating my frame and wheel and not seeing any damage, I tried to re-mount the wheel... Well my hydraulic disk brakes, "locked up" and there was no room between the pads to get the disk/wheel back on the bike.

Thank goodness I was about 200 m from the end of the trail. SO I walked my bike out, Zac cycled on home, got the car and picked me up. (The afore-mention dividends ;)

I'm still not sure what happened to my brakes, hopefully the bike shop will be able to tell me.

Even after all the adventures, I'm still looking forward to my next ride.