Yesterday I did a 6 hour mountain bike course down at Glentress. I've never had any tuition in mountain biking and although I feel fairly confident riding on trails I always feel I'm relying on luck rather than skill. Given what I learnt yesterday it appears I was right.
I did my course with Dirt School's Andy Barlow and wasn't disappointed. He is an amazing rider and a fantastic coach. He's very animated and enthusiastic and really knows his stuff. We spent a lot of time standing on the trails going over specific skills like riding corners and berms (sloping sweeping corners). Then we did drop offs (slow and fast), manuals (lifting front wheel without pedalling), wheelies (we all know what they are) and bunny hops. I'm pretty useless at wheelies and manuals but managed to do my first bunny hop (at the age of 40 that's not bad!).
By the end of the 6 hours we were all mentally and physically exhausted so we didn't really get a good chance to try out what we'd learned on an actual ride, so I'm desperate to get back out and practise. I did show Ruby my Bunny hopping on the way to school this morning but she wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped saying "you're not lifting your back wheel very much Mummy". Kids!!
I've just entered the Selkirk mtb marathon in June. I'm doing the short course (25k) and according to my friend who designed the course I should manage it no problem. We shall see.
My legs were very heavy today after my hill run and all the cycling so I'd intended to rest, but it was such a lovely day so I decided to meet the CaniX group at Dalkeith. As Nethy is is season I was dogless but thankfully one of the members very kindly agreed to pick me up and lend me her Malamute 'Skye'. Score!! Thanks Viv :)
Skye and I were both pretty tired this evening so we had a plod, and even walked at times. It was just nice to be out with the group in the sunshine, and it was especially nice to be running with my dream dog (sorry Nethy!)
No comments:
Post a Comment