First ride in a LOOONG time.

Well, I dusted off my mtn. bike. It has been quietly hanging on my rack in the garage for over a year. I've decided to take her out for a spin today. I'm not sure this is wise. I just ordered a new road bike and it will be in Thursday. I plan on picking it up at noon on Friday. Something in the back of my mind keeps telling me to take it easy on the trails today. I sure would hate to hurt myself and not be able to ride my new bike. My mtn. bike was the first bike I bought. She's a beautiful red Specialized Rockhopper Pro. But she only has 260 miles on her. Once I started road riding I really neglected her. I guess we'll see if we can still trail ride. I'm kind of excited to ride it again. 5:30 seems a long way off. Wish me luck.

Good luck and take it easy. I'm a mountain biker at heart but I'll be getting my road bike down from the rack its hung on over winter this weekend to start prepping it for riding. I'm really excited and its not even a new bike!

I want to change the handlebars and stem so it won't be ready for riding properly until OH gets his hands on it :( but I can't wait to not have to ride the "anchor" to work. My old winter hack bike, which is coincidentally an old Spesh Rockhopper frame built up with rigid forks and road tyres, is so heavy in comparison to the roadie that everytime it points uphill it feels like someone has thrown an anchor off the back. However it just shrugs off potholes and road salt so I shouldn't complain too much.

You do need to put more miles on the Rockhopper though (once the new bike excitement has worn off of course)!

Well I didn't kill myself or break anything during my ride yesterday. It was a tough ride though. 8.6 miles with a lot of ups. My 2 riding buddies both race mtn. bikes so I felt bad that they had to wait on me a lot...especially toward the end of the ride when I was toast. Couldn't do some of the stuff that I could before - my technical skills have eroded a bit. Haven't lost my love for the downhills. I think I kind of surprised them with my downhill speed. They took me on the race course which was quite a bit harder than most of the stuff I used to ride. The trails are known for their difficulty - at least in this area. So, I feel pretty good about my performance. It was a lot of fun. Think I'll have to do it a bit more often.