After doing some heavy trail riding in the past few weeks I finally had myself thinking that I had the stamina to do some serious trails. Ive hit some crazy single track recently and loved it to death, the sharp bends and drops were simply awesome and just the fact that your pushing the bike 99% to its limit is a complete adrenaline rush. Well with that in my head I headed to a local trail with a buddy of mine but decided to change it up by taking different roads. Well sure enough i had bit off more than i could che within 30 minutes of uphill and hard pedaling i was out of breath and my legs were fatigued, here was some serious uphill with loose rocks that were almost impossible to pedal up and if we werent going up we were on flat land going through heavy rocks and thick sand then up another steep hill. Some were so steep that it was impossible to pedal up it because the front end would just kick up or i would slide off my seat. After finally getting up the mountain it was a loooonnnnnggg downhill yet again full of loose rocks that seriously psyched me out. I found myself trying to modulate the brakes because if the rears grabbed the rear tire would kick out if and if the fronts grabbed the shock would compress alot more which would raise my rear end. Sure enough after some heavy downhill I went over the bars for my first time which was a crazy experience hahaha. Ended up with a gashed left leg that bled and some scuffs on my arms. Strangely enough my bike came out scratchless except for a bent reflector. We even hit a downhill that was soooo loose that i could not even ride down let alone carry my bike down so i ended up carrying the bike back up! hahahaha. I just thought i would share my story on how i thought i mastered a local trail but did not! and does anyone have any tips on going downhill on some serious looooose rocks and dirt? thanks