Finally got a chance to get out with a couple of friends to ride the PedalFest course. Its some not-too-hard-for-actual-mountain-bikers-but-a-little-daunting-for-me single track and then a fire road climb/descent that's no biggie. Beginners ride two laps and have a shorter climb, everyone else does three laps and a longer fire road climb.
I walked anything dicey-looking to me and rode some of it. Not sure I'll be racing it this year, although my main tour guide friend thought it would be no problem to get up to speed. My other excellent-advisor-former-MTB-instructor friend kind of felt like I should take my time and not worry about racing until I felt comfortable, everyone develops confidence at their own speed.
The really nice thing about this course though is that its in a park right in the middle of town. So its easy to get to and just ride the bits I feel ok about and gradually add the harder and harder stuff over time. The other difference is that most other singletrack we have is much longer and faster- it will be down a mountain. This is just a rollercoaster course that is all ups and downs, so it doesn't all come at you in rapid fire succession. Its nice too that there are plenty of people around to call 911 if I crash, so I can just sometimes go out solo and figure it out on my own without worrying about holding anyone else up.
Overall it was fun though and the company was great. Really appreciate my friends sometimes, they didn't get in too much of a ride watching me get on and off the bike saying things like "yikes" and "I don't think so".
