I am not a real mountain biker

I have had a hard time getting miles on the bike the last few months. When school starts, our schedules kick into overdrive and even commuting to work becomes difficult at best. Add an apendecomy to the mix and I have been slowed down greatly since mid-August.

I have had a few road rides to test the waters including a 40 mile jaunt on Thursday that was very good. I felt sluggish out of the gate and didn't have a lot of power in the last few miles, but I did 40 miles with an 18.3 mph average (not far off of where my peak in season speed is) where I was able to hit a rhythm and stay in it even though I didn't feel the strongest.

Today, I figured I would grab a ride in the afternoon after doing church stuff all morning. The only problem was that I wasn't all that interested in riding with temps in the upper 80's with winds in the upper 20's. On the way home from church it dawned on me that this might be the perfect scenerio for hitting one of the local state parks where I might finally be able to get the Rig (the Gary Fisher single-speed mountain bike that I bought in April) some off road action.

I looked up the info online to see about fees, trail set up, hours and such for a few of the parks and opted for Beaver Creek which is only about 10 miles east of town. I probably would have hit Newton Hills which is a hotter destination for my friends that ride, but they were having an event there this afternoon that would have made riding an impossibility. So I packed up the bike, hit the road and made my way to Beaver Creek.

Having never been to Beaver Creek, I knew that this would be nothing much more than a scouting expedition where I would get to know the lay of the land and would have to be fairly conservative. The only problem with being conservative on a single-speed is that any momentum you lose by taking it slow means you will not have the speed to go uphill or over obstacles and will probably either walk or crash. Add to that the fact that we had a lot of rain last night and there were leaves all over the trail thanks to recent rain and wind and the conditions were not ideal for my first off roading venture.

I would not have impressed anybody with my skills as I did a fair amount of walking, took a couple of spills and generally rode like a novice. In my defense, I did get better as the day went on and I got to know the loop better. I began to anticipate the terrain much better and made better decisions earlier than in previous laps. I did draw some blood early and know that I'll feel the effort tomorrow in different ways than I would with a road ride.

While I hope to spend a lot more time off road next season, I have a long way to go before anyone will acuse me of being a mountain biker. I did have fun (bumps and bruises not withstanding) and hope to even get out a few more times before it snows.