DH and I took part of the morning to finally ride some of the beginner trails at Brown County State Park--the park where I'll be attending a MTB clinic this weekend. Between travel, bad weather and other obligations, we just hadn't made it out there, despite the fact that I've owned my bike since Christmas.

I have to admit that I was pretty darn nervous when we first started. I almost turned back. DH had been MTBing for a long time, and I bristled at one of the things he said and found myself nearing a panic attack. Finally, I pulled it together and kept riding. From there, I did okay. There were a couple of small sections that scared me to the point of dismounting, but I otherwise rode the trail. We made a few loops before calling it a day. Depending on how you do the loop, there's one section that has a bit of a gentle incline I felt way more comfortable going up than down. The speed going down freaked me out a bit.

So, no falls; no crashes. Yet. I have long put off learning to MTB because I didn't feel I had the personality for it. I'm more of a Nervous Nellie type about some things. With that in mind, I think the ride went pretty well. We had the place to ourselves, which was really nice. I look forward to learning some things this weekend at the clinic. I also really liked my bike (a Specialized Myka). I have nothing to compare it to, but I felt comfortable on it. The thing that bothered me the most was not being clipped in. While I appreciated being able to put a foot down without thinking of clipping out, I am so used to being clipped in that it felt weird. I'll get used to it. I definitely think it's better to use platforms for the time being.