Friday
I intended to take the day off to join the early riders, but school obligations forced my hand. I had to attend a marker training session in the 'peg. So I packed up on Thursday, intending to head off to Falcon right after the session ended. When I arrived at the training session on Friday AM I learned that the sessions were half day affairs and I'd been assigned to the afternoon session ... but ... they could fit me in to the morning session. "Really?! That would be great!" I said, and headed in.
I trained. I played nice. I worked hard. I focussed. And I was rewarded! We were finished before 12. I headed off then, to meet my dear daughter R (at her place of work) who had, the day before, been struck by a car while she was riding her bicycle to work. (It was not her fault. There were witnesses. The car driver admitted his guilt. She's okay. The bike is not - bent front wheel and fork.) I had a steel fork to offer her in her woes, and I needed to see that she was, in fact, all right. When I got there it was her lunch time, so we headed out to Qs for a decent sub experience and a chat, and I delivered the fork.
By just after one I was heading off for a weekend of mtb riding, imagining that I might catch the early riders, or at least ride a few trails and then meet them after their ride. (I know now that this would have been foolish, as the Falcon trails were hard to make sense of, especially for a newbie.) I rolled in to Falcon by about 2:40 and headed over to the trailhead. No vehicles that I could recognize were there. Puzzled, I turned around to find to the campsite and hopefully the guys. Wonder of wonders, just a few kms back up the road there they were, heading to the trailhead to start the ride!
Oh how wonderful, oh how marvelous! I managed to get changed and get my bike ready and not hold up the caravan! I've never ridden the Falcon trails. The word people who use words to describe mtb trails is technical. The trails are like a concentrated and intense version of Ingolf, which is the longer, technical trail we road on Saturday.
All in all both rides were fantastic! For some reason - conditioning? core-fitness? slightly more experience? - I felt confident and fine throughout the whole ride. Fear did not overcome me. I could control the bike (for the most part), I rode better, and I didn't crash - not once.
The evening revels were also fine, although there was a hitch in my plan and execution - what happens in Falcon stays in Falcon ... whatever the case, I recovered completely.
Again, for another report, and a pic, head over to the ABES blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment