My mountain bike ride last night kicked the shit out of me.
Now I’ve been riding for a number of years, starting out with some really beginner mountain biking in Florida, then switching to road biking last year. After the last several month of road biking, doing 50-60+ miles a week and dropping almost 20 pounds since November, I was excited to get an invitation to ride with a bunch of people from work. We hit up Sope Creek, which is barely 5 minutes from our office. I wasn’t sure what to expect, knowing that some of the riders are pretty hard-core, but the reviews I read online said it was a challenging trail for beginners to intermediate riders.
chal-lengi-ng (adj) “Steep hills (12% grade) with large rocks and timber throughout designed to make you wish you’d never gotten on a mountain bike.”
It was, by far, the hardest ride I’ve ever done. Even the tough ride I did in December in Alabama with a friend was cake compared with Sope Creek. Unfortunately I fell (hard) early and couldn’t get back into the mental state I needed to have a good ride. In hindsight, I’m glad I went out with the group and tried to keep up. If I’d known what I was getting myself into, I’d likely have talked myself out of it.
I’m looking forward to the next ride, as long as the next ride is far enough into the future to let my wounds heal first.
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