My first mountain bike ride

I've ridden old dirt roads. I've ridden loose gravel roads. How hard can mountain biking be, right?? Boy was I in for a rude awakening! I guess one can't fully appreciate the skill it takes to ride in the woods until you experience it yourself. And I for one do NOT have the skill.

My husband is a MTB'er at heart. He was an avid and great rider pre-me days when he lived in Maine. We have talked about doing it but both love road riding so it was just conversation in passing. Now that winter is creeping in, and road riding is on hiatus until spring (except for weekends) we decided to give it a go. Bill (my hubby) has an older Parkpre mountain bike that's just my size. So we cleaned it up, got new tires etc, and hit the trails.

HolyMackeral! Do I SUCK at it!!!! And its so scary!! There were drop offs and rocks and rolling hills.... the rolling hills I can sort of handle as long as they weren't steep desents, but most of the single track trail was down the side of a steep hill and I kept envisioning myself losing balance and careening down the "mountain". I managed to stay mostly vertical (only because I walked about 2 of the 7 mile trail) but I did kind of fall once when my back tire got too close to a tree stump and I was stressed from a series of rolling hills I had just cleared (a miracle) so I freaked and wobbled and went down. Jammbed my thumb. Still hurts like the devil but that was my only fall.

Right now my husband is so PUMPED to be mountain biking again and I am scared to death to get back out there. We are going to try an "easier" trail next time but this one was supposed to be simple enough. I am attaching a link of a rider on a trail similar to the one we were on. There are (I think) 4 "FATS" trails; the one we were on is called the "Skinny Loop". This guy in the video is doing the "Brown Wave" trail. The guy is a daredevil in my book so needless to say I took the trail considerably slower. It gives you the general idea..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoWyd_tUnBE
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