Thanks for the post, Melissa. It's great to hear you had such a positive experience as a newbie on the Arastadero ride. The Velo Girls are great to ride with even though I don't join the rides very often.

I'm also a roadie looking to get dirty. After six months of shopping and learning and coming home bloody and scraped and bruised from my time out on demo bikes (my bike handling skills suck!), I finally bought a mountain bike. I'm chomping at the bit to get out there but it's still on order. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few weeknight rides in before the time changes.

I'm hoping to find the time one of these days to join one of the MTB skills clinics put on by Velo Girls, also!

Sheri