multiple rookie questions

[Miranda]

Well, my advice is humble because I would consider my riding as such, but I guess I can say I have crossed the path where some your questions are to a degree.

I ride primarily road. I bought my mtb first though. I had this near fist fight debate about what size to buy with the sales guy who was a die hard mtb goat. I'm 5'5", but with a short inseam, and long torso/arms. I own a Trek wsd 4500 hard trail, 16". Your post brought me out to my garage with my tape measure to check the stand over height. It's about 2 to 2 1/2". I really wanted the 18", which felt more comfortable, being less cramped in the upper body... but barely any stand over clearance. I was used to a road bike frame in my former kid bike life, and just felt like the 16" that the goat kept insisting I buy was just too tight.

I rode that 18" to death on their back path that's about like your house trail. It felt good to me. The goat said, "Lady! that bike is toooo big for you! ...when you get in a 'real' trail situation where you are twisting, turning, dropping, your mtb bike on a dime in short notice, it will be toooo much (big) of a bike for you to handle... I'll sell you whatever you want, but don't blame me when you crash because you couldn't handle your bike". I finally gave into the goat, and bought the 16".

It sat idle for a while. Then when I rode it some more on a non-trail situation, I hated it... and the goat. THEN, I recently finally took my mud girl to her homeland on some park trails designed specifically as mtb. Whoaa... as I was twisting around something really tight, I thought, "thank gawd my bike was not any bigger, I would have never made it.... @#$% goat was right".

On the shifting you are on the right idea. I think on the road, you have much more time to plan your shifting. You visually have more time to plan in general (well, unless a dog or crazy driver mess you up). That was something that just freaked me out on the trail at first. Having no clue what was coming until I was right on top of it with only literally split seconds to decide what to do... much less do it. But, when you make it through one of those situation without crashing, it's a huge rush.

For me thus far, the other thing that surpasses the above rush is making it through something I crashed on, or avoided, in a second time through. One of my guy friends who was a mtb first, then roadie (good at both) said in his man ah-hem bluntness, "M, one day you will just get sick and tired of avoiding or riding around an obstacle... a lilttle voice will suddenly just say in your head f*** it, I'm doing it! ...and that will be it".

Well, I'm sorta there on that one.

EDIT ADD: Sorry, more blab on... one last thing on how I remember to shift. Anything I'm trying to learn new, I find it helps me to make up some visual pic, or play or words in my head to say as I do it. I don't think I ever watched this movie all the way, but it was called "The Big Easy". I asked the lbs goat, "sooo... when I want an easy to pedal little gear I click the little sized shifter with my right hand, and a bigger harder to pedal gear, I click the big shifter, correct?". The goat said, "no it's the other way around". Well, that's just azz backwards I thought. A big down, will then equal a big up... so big up means it's time for "the big easy"... push the big clicker with my big thumb on my right hand to make it "easy". Yes, I know that's loopy, but I have never forgotten since what to do in a split second. FWIW.