Okay, had to give myself a pat here too. I got all my carbon goodies, and well, new toys make me ride harder because well, I feel like I owe it to the parts. Anyway, I rode some super windy, twisty good fun stuff, I rode some scary downhills, some tough uphills, and woooo it was good. I finally got some more faith in Pony, started flinging my body into it, and we had a blast. I remembered the part of Sally Swift's book, Centered Riding about using "soft eyes" and I thought back to all the riding lessons where I told my young students to look where they wanted to go. Then, I took my own advice and it was fuuuuun.

So the other cool thing I did was my first rear tire skid turn. We were out on my favorite trail but it was miserably sandy, and technically I'm not sposed to be riding, so we headed back and took the short loop by the canal. Water = smoother trail. Anyway, there was this corner that turns left, so you avoid the fencepost on the right. I think the brain just shut off, and the body just did because I only grabbed for my rear brake (probably childhood "don't use the front brake" memories") and I leaned into my turn, felt the bike half lay down, yet feel amazingly solid, and then body said "now pedal" and I pedaled and come right out of it. Ooooooooh my gawd what a rush! Wanna do it again!

love and cookies
-smurf