Progress :)

3 hours of sweet single-track today...walked very little of it...NO CRASHES or even emergency stops...heart rate was far lower...felt like I was riding my bike and not the reverse...AND I received comments from friends that I am faster.

I will take it - AND I had lots of fun. Ya know, I kind of feel like a kid on the trails and that is a good feeling. That isn't new, but today felt so very different from all of my previous mtb rides.

I love my tough little Jamis, my mountain goat rocks and she is, apparently, unbreakable!

Very glad your having fun on your Jamis. :)

Today was the first time I took my cross out to the trails, and apparently half of it was single track with dense vegetation around. I was most definitely going slow, but had a great time too :)

Look forward to hearing more about your progress!

WAY TO GO! It is a day like this that shows your hardwork is paying off. Brought a much needed smile to my face. :D

That's good to hear! It's hard to enjoy it if you are tense, nervous. Plus the energy that was wasted combating it can now be put towards riding- as you are doing. So the heart rate is lower and the speeds are up. I learned mountain biking by going on the same trail over and over, each time going farther and clearing more and more of the stuff I was afraid of before. The familiarity created a drop in nerves, so I started riding the rocky parts, the rutted area, the deep sand spot, the stairstepped downhill. A little at a time.

Good job.

The hardest thing for me is not fixating on the front wheel. Lift your head, Tzvia- look down the trail- don't let things surprise you. Look where you are going- not at a patch of dirt 5 feet in front of your tire! Look up... :p

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Originally Posted by tzvia

That's good to hear! It's hard to enjoy it if you are tense, nervous. Plus the energy that was wasted combating it can now be put towards riding- as you are doing. So the heart rate is lower and the speeds are up. I learned mountain biking by going on the same trail over and over, each time going farther and clearing more and more of the stuff I was afraid of before. The familiarity created a drop in nerves, so I started riding the rocky parts, the rutted area, the deep sand spot, the stairstepped downhill. A little at a time.

Good job.

The hardest thing for me is not fixating on the front wheel. Lift your head, Tzvia- look down the trail- don't let things surprise you. Look where you are going- not at a patch of dirt 5 feet in front of your tire! Look up... :p

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This is what I've been doing, heading back to a more advanced beginners trail and just riding it again, and again, and... I cannot ride all of it just yet and right now I am only attempting 2/3 of it - and today I rode almost all of it. The 1/3 part I've not been able to ride is more technical (to me) and I've been focusing on riding the REST of the trail before I start tackling the remaining 1/3. I will start THAT next Saturday, weather permitting :D Today I rode quite a lot that I've only walked in the past :)

I just try to remember to keep looking ahead, to not try and "steer" the bike, and to keep pedaling! For some reason I seem to think that momentum will carry me over obstacles - sometimes that even works - but pedaling is a GOOD thing..:rolleyes:

Good point about being loose and not tense. I still struggle with this some days. I can't wait to hear how your attempt at the other 1/3 goes and if it isn't a success at first you know you can build on it. You have made big progress since that clinic.

Great to hear, Catrin! I love your stories about progress and adventures on the trail.

Hurray! I love the joy in your post. Good luck with the remaining third!

I think I would have tried the ride the bits I walked yesterday if I hadn't forgotten my shin guards - they help protect me if I fall over. I am glad to report that outside of some very, very light scratches from the pins on my BMX pedals that really weren't apparently until this morning, I only have one actual wound from them - and that was from walking my bike 4 steps to get it on my bike rack :o

I think Tzvia nailed the difference, I was much more relaxed and the bike responded to that. I also didn't realize until I checked what gear my rear cassette was in this morning that I was riding a harder gear than I realized. My rear cassette is 11-36 and I think that some of my earlier problems were from being in too easy a gear, though I still needed to do that. For now I am staying in the small chain, but that still gives me a lot of room to play in the back.

Planning a repeat engagement next Saturday, weather and trail conditions permitting!

Oh yes, I also realized another benefit to riding in the woods, wind protection :D I hate the wind...

That clinic was quite helpful, but my group was just too large. It was a great beginning and it really helped me a great deal to have a private session with a great instructor about a month later & we went through all of the same drills from the clinic and then built some on that.