Mountain Biking - My first mtn bike ride!

Hope you don't mind a roadie posting here, but today I took my first mtn bike ride, so I thought I'd share!

My LBS invited me along on thier first trail ride of the season. As I don't have a mtn bike, Patty was nice enough to let me use a Cannondale Delta V 600. Seems like a pretty nice bike.

The first thing I noticed was that no matter how hard I hit the pedals on my road bike, the front wheel stays on the ground! Not so with the mtn bike! This was a whole new experience! We rode in a huge pasture with native grasses, trees and plenty of hills. A lot of the time, we followed cow trails. Most of the time, it was a bit of a challenge staying in the groove. Occasionaly, it wasn't hard...because the "groove" was so deep you couldn't get out if you wanted to! Several times, I was actually below the level of the surrounding ground! It was different having to stand on the pedals so much, and learn to move forward and backwards to keep the bike balanced. I fell a lot, but since I was not really going fast, no harm was done, and I always got back on! My fellow riders, as usual, were kind to me, and stopped frequently so I wouldn't get lost. It was at one of these stops that one of them noticed that I was bleeding from a cut on my right forearm. I hadn't even realized I had cut myself coming through one of the deep cuts. Anyway, they all cheered for me, and said it wasn't really a ride unless you had blood and puke! (No one puked, but they still called it a ride!)

I really had a good time, and I will do it again, but I'm not ready to park the road bike!:D

It has been a while since I have hit the trails. I only have a MTB's, but the nearest trail is 20 miles away. I just tend to cruise around, jump a curb or two to stay in the groove.

Don't get too used to the trail or you might not want to do RAGBRAI next year!

Don't worry about that Steele! I just put a new cassette on ol' Blue so it will be ready for the next RAGBRAI!! Man, that was sure a lot of fun, and next year I will do the whole thing!

The trails that I hit were about 70 miles from home...sure is handy to have my van to haul my bikes around. The trail riding was sure different. And, the buddy from whom I got my new road bike told me that he has an extra mountain bike, so now I suppose I will be in debt to him once again!

Oh well, my life's adventure on two wheels continues!

Originally posted by nebill
Hope you don't mind a roadie posting here, but today I took my first mtn bike ride, so I thought I'd share!

We all ride bikes Bill, no need to segregate :D I post where ever I see an interesting topic and maybe have something meaningful to say... Glad to hear you tried Offroad and liked it. You get to screw around a little, fall down and not get tooo terribly hurt and you don't have to worry about gettin' run over by a car :p

Congrats on your ride Nebill. Mountain biking is definitely a different experience than road riding. It's nice to get away from the cement and hit some dirt. So how many falls did you have? In mountain biking it's not a matter of IF you're going fall, it's a how many times you'll fall.

Also if you dont fall or wreck some you're not trying hard enough :) Anyway glad you enjoyed your first mountain bike ride. I got into it a little over a year ago.And since then my wife,fatherinlaw,motherinlaw,brotherinlaw and 2 sisterinlaws have all started riding(1/2 of them used to road bike). We usually have to travel 60plus mile to hit good trails.But it's fun to make a day of it especially with the whole family!

I'm beginning to see that I have a very good living situation: closest trail is 3 miles away (riding distance) and road riding abounds just out my front door.

Boy, didn't know I was supposed to keep track of how many times I fell down! :D Seemed like a lot, but hey, I was just learning! And I did learn a lot! Just like on my road bike, I can go down the hills really fast! Highlights of the day include going down a very steep grassy slope without dropping a front wheel into a hole and going over the handlebars; making it down a steep chute...standing as far back as I could, the rear wheel locked up and digging in, and feathering the front brake untill I could see my unobstructed exit, then getting off the brakes and flying out of the end of the chute like I knew what I was doing; and traversing a hillside on a narrow path without falling down the hill! Going up the hills was a different story. Either the hill was steep enough that I didn't have the strength and/or stamina to make it up, or I would smash into the side of the hill and fall down, then have a heck of a time getting started on the hill, so I walked up a lot of them!

A friend, George, asked me if I was doing okay, but he saw the smile on my face, so he answered his own question! George likes to kid me...when we are on RAGBRAI, he teased me that I could have been out there working all those hills and headwind on some old decrepit 3-speed and still had a good time! And, he was right!

Wow you guys, the closest trail to me is across the street, down by the river. The trails run both ways from my house a long ways down the river, and if I get tired of riding on this side of the river theres some more technical trails on the other side! Wow, for once I see living in Saskatoon isn't so bad for riding. Trails that is. If you're a dirtjumper or a trials rider, like my friends, the city will do nothing for you, but mow you jumps down with a bobcat, or scream at you for riding their stuff.