My new toy

[arielmoon]

OMG! I am sorry I laughed at your post but I had almost the same experience this weekend. I had only been on a mountain bike one other time and it was all flat. This past weekend was a race in Gainesville at the gorgeous Haile's Trails. It is not open to the public unless there is a race so everyone wants to go when there is an event. Well, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about! I had ridden 48 miles that morning but I did not have a problem with stamina. Staying upright on the bike was much bigger! I fell twice and walked about as much as I rode. I found out I am a big yellow chicken! LOL Back to the yellow trails for me for a while. I do, however, now have an appreciation for my many friends that mountain bike race. Some of the climbs and descents were outrageous!!

[beccaB]

I'm sure there are flat wide trails somewhere in a nearby county, but closer to us and getting near the end of the day we just went to a local place that has those short trails in the woods. It looked like places that kids would carve out of woody places behind their houses. A local group maintains them, but I will wait until I have some more experience before trying it again on those trails. My daredevil husband didn't have any problems with it because he grew up in that kind of a place, and I grew up in a city. I also have a confidence problem and am almost too afraid of crashing, which can take away from whatever little skill I may have. Does that make any sense?

[arielmoon]

I totally get what you mean. I know that relaxing and not grabbing the brakes is better but it was really hard not too!!! I really felt like I needed to get a feel of the bike a lot better before attempting anything like it again. There are tons of trails here, I just need to stick to the easy ones for a while! It was fun though!