Trying to decide...

[Catrin]

I've a vacation coming up later in the summer, and I am going to camp at a state park 2 or 3 nights during that time to just play around on the beginning mountain bike trails. Instead of focusing on riding the entire trail at once, I am going to "session" them, if that is the right term. Ride from this tree to that bush, see how I do, decide if I want to go back and repeat before the next section. Do this for a few hours, take a break, come back. Rinse and repeat over 2-2.5 days :) Toss some hiking and reading in there. Maybe go to the pool in the evening...

I will be doing this solo, but am trying to decide whether it is best to do this during the week when there are fewer people on the trails (less of a distraction and fewer bikes crossing in front of me) or at least over a part of the weekend (more people around to see me if I wind up in the ravine).

What do you more experienced mountain biking women think? I need to do this to really internalize my introductory skills so I can improve - just going once every 2-3 weeks isn't cutting it. It also sounds like awesome fun :)

I am starting to lean toward going down during the week instead of starting in the weekend...

[Hi Ho Silver]

When I had a motorhome, I used to do the solo mountain biking thing all the time in the state parks. I found that the riding was much more fun if I had the trails pretty much to myself. In fact, the few times I ever went down on my bike were due to trying to avoid kids on their bikes and people walking on the biking trails. So I ended up always going on Saturday - on Saturday I'd set up camp and chill, do some easy riding on Sundays to get familiar with the trails, then ride the trails with gusto during the week when there were no folks to interfere with my riding.

I too used to worry about what would happen if I fell and there weren't people around to help, so I carried either a whistle or one of those small air horns (usually used for boating) to signal for help. (The usual signal for help is 3 blasts, followed by a good pause, then 3 blasts, etc). Now days with cell phones, I guess I'd program in the ranger's number and also take the phone with me.

Have fun!

[limewave]

I like to work it out on my own too. I don't want an audience. Just me and the trail. I too carry a whistle. I keep it attached to the front of my camelbak where, if I had too, I could use it without needing my hands ;)

[tulip]

Um, I think this is an open internet forum and I don't think you should advertise your trip as you have. I hope you consider editing it to remove specific info.

Other than that, have fun.

[Catrin]

Um, I think this is an open internet forum and I don't think you should advertise your trip as you have. I hope you consider editing it to remove specific info.

Other than that, have fun.

ummmm, good idea :o I was so excited that I just wasn't thinking. I would never dream of doing that, say, on Facebook or my (dead) blog until after the fact.