Woot!  Got back out on the trail today.  Only problem was we couldn't find the right trail for bikes.  Three miles of wandering around was useless as every trail we found was for horses and hikers.  I knew we needed the opposite side of the creek but never found a trail.  So much for that plan.  I'll be going to Omaha instead.

First hill down nearly gave me a heart attack but I relaxed and went at my pace.  Then my son and I made a pact that he would tell me what was coming up so I could be ready for it.  He'd yell, "roots!", "downhill", "uphill" and anything else that would help.  After about a mile, I was feeling pretty confident.  The bike's brakes were working and my son's verbal map was doing wonders.

I did sort of crash.  My son went up a bridge that had an incline ramp.  He didn't get up fast enough and got stuck.  I nearly ran into him and somehow remembered to push the bike up and out from under me so you don't fall over on the back of your head.  The only thing I did was scrape up my inner thigh with the pedals.

We also got really close to a ledge.  Scared the crap out of him (good thing I don't have vision on the right side) and remembered this rule:

Most important rule of mountain biking is:  Look where you WANT to go, not at what you're going to hit.   We went past the ledge and did just fine.  


Kind of like FMQ where you plan ahead of the needle instead of looking at it and ruining your pattern or having to unpick the stitches.

It was nice to face my fears and make it through at least for now.  Still sort of jumpy though.