Post by captslog on Apr 23, 2014 8:44:29 GMT
Last Friday we were invited to spend the afternoon with my sister-in-law and sister-in-law's-other-half (SILOH). They were staying at a cabin in Sherwood Forest for the weekend. I was told that Siloh would take me out for a ride if I wanted to bring my bike.
It became clear that the ride he had in mind wasn't on roads, so the T3 was out of the question. So I dug the old BSO/Argos/Tesco special that I was given years ago (and rode perhaps twice), from out of the shed and dusted the worst of the rust and cobwebs off the steel framed monstrosity. It has big tyres which I thought were the essential part. I've never done any off road, MTB and BMX didn't exist when I was a kid, you just sometimes rode your bike where it wasn't really suitable.
Siloh's bike turned out to be a nice(?) MTB bike with huge wheels, adjustable front suspension, and an internally geared rear hub. I believe he sold his motorbike to buy it.
We set off, and I quickly found that my bike was adjusted wrongly. The seat was in the wrong plane and the wrong height, and it took a couple more stops to get it right. The forest trail had a few climbs, the first of these I found really awkward but not quite as difficult as the first descent.
Suddenly, we came over the top of a rise and off went Siloh like a shot. It was all twists and turns, bumps and hollows, and I wondered of I was going to stay on. It felt so alien to be going over that much gravel on a bike, and I was constantly thinking "no front brakes". The bike was rattling like bag of spanners, it was a bit disconcerting that this stopped later through the ride, perhaps I was losing bits?
The next hill and the others after that, I found my pace and had warmed up, and I seemed to be leading up these But all the 'downs' were the same as before, with Siloh seeming more friendly with gravity than I was, it probably comes with greater confidence.
The ride was 7.7 miles*, and when we got to the end, I felt that I could do it again without too much bother. Although it was fun, I can't see me changing to off-road or taking it up as an aside to road, but I can see that it must help a lot with bike-handling skills. Those of you who "do/did it" already know this of course.
(*oddly, my gps said 7.5 at the time and when I initially uploaded it to strava. It now says 10.1 miles when I look at the ride. Where did the extra miles come from?)
It became clear that the ride he had in mind wasn't on roads, so the T3 was out of the question. So I dug the old BSO/Argos/Tesco special that I was given years ago (and rode perhaps twice), from out of the shed and dusted the worst of the rust and cobwebs off the steel framed monstrosity. It has big tyres which I thought were the essential part. I've never done any off road, MTB and BMX didn't exist when I was a kid, you just sometimes rode your bike where it wasn't really suitable.
Siloh's bike turned out to be a nice(?) MTB bike with huge wheels, adjustable front suspension, and an internally geared rear hub. I believe he sold his motorbike to buy it.
We set off, and I quickly found that my bike was adjusted wrongly. The seat was in the wrong plane and the wrong height, and it took a couple more stops to get it right. The forest trail had a few climbs, the first of these I found really awkward but not quite as difficult as the first descent.
Suddenly, we came over the top of a rise and off went Siloh like a shot. It was all twists and turns, bumps and hollows, and I wondered of I was going to stay on. It felt so alien to be going over that much gravel on a bike, and I was constantly thinking "no front brakes". The bike was rattling like bag of spanners, it was a bit disconcerting that this stopped later through the ride, perhaps I was losing bits?
The next hill and the others after that, I found my pace and had warmed up, and I seemed to be leading up these But all the 'downs' were the same as before, with Siloh seeming more friendly with gravity than I was, it probably comes with greater confidence.
The ride was 7.7 miles*, and when we got to the end, I felt that I could do it again without too much bother. Although it was fun, I can't see me changing to off-road or taking it up as an aside to road, but I can see that it must help a lot with bike-handling skills. Those of you who "do/did it" already know this of course.
(*oddly, my gps said 7.5 at the time and when I initially uploaded it to strava. It now says 10.1 miles when I look at the ride. Where did the extra miles come from?)