My Adventures in Mountain Biking

Jon got a new mountain bike in November and has been having lots of fun playing on it. I used to have a mountain bike...in college. I still have that mountain bike, but apparently leaving it on my porch for 5 years is not good for it so it is not exactly safe. We took it in last week but the repairs were more than it cost, so it is getting taken to an awesome place soon - Workshop Houston. I've just browsed their website but I am super impressed. They provide a do-it-yourself workshop for youth in the Third Ward where they learn how to fix bikes. They can work towards building their own bike from donated parts that were at one time unusable (such as my mountain bike), but not before they help build a bike to donate to a local charity.

Anyway, we had tried several weekends to rent a mountain bike for me from West End, but they won't rent bikes if the trails at Memorial Park are closed (from rain/wet/muddy conditions) even if we have no plans to go there. Saturday was to be our day it would finally work out and we wanted to go to Double Lake Recreation Area about an hour north of town. Once again though, West End wouldn't rent us a bike. Grrrr. I started looking up places online to see if anyone else rented and we finally lucked out with Planetary Cycles. We drove over there, got a bike, and were on our way. By the way - they were great and cheap, if you have any need to ever rent a bike. They even put SPD pedals on for me to use without question (my first road bike had SPD pedals so I had the shoes still, and I use them in spin class on occasion). I was not sure if being clipped in was a great idea or not, but knowing I'm so used to it on the road I figured I should go with. Jon assured me I'd get my feet out if I needed to.

Note my last true mountain bike ride (and possibly my only true mountain bike ride) was approximately 7 years ago at Pedernales Falls State Park with Kelly. We had looked it up online and saw that they had 20 miles of trails. We packed our picnic lunch and camelbacks and were all ready to tackle that 20 mile route. After all, I think we both had ridden long rides of 12 miles before on the road, so why would 20 on the trails be any harder? The ladies at the guard stand at the park gave us a map with a 7 mile route and we said we wanted to go 20. They said 7 would be plenty. Did we look that dumb? I guess so... I think we carried our bikes more than we road them. I'm not sure how many obscenities came out of my mouth, but we still had fun and I do not remember it being scary, just some places that were impossible to ride, like down small cliffs or over huge boulders. There were hills too, but I don't remember it being technical, just steep and hard to climb. Anyway, after a good 2 hours or so we were done. And we never went again. Kelly was on a hybrid bike and said she wasn't sure her bike was exactly built for that. We were also more sore in our upper bodies than legs from carrying our bikes so much! Ah, the old days - I miss the adventures Kelly and I used to go on. Rolling back into the sorority house after stuff like that was always entertaining..."you went where?" "you did what?" "where is that? off campus?"

So fast forward 7 years to Saturday. A friend (Kerry) I know through work had gone up there a few times recently with her fiance and she said the trails were not scary and that she felt fairly safe doing them. I told her I'd never do Ho Chi Minh trails and if they were like that there's no way - she agreed Ho Chi Minh is scary but said Double Lake was not that bad. So that peaked my interest and confidence enough to want to go try it out.

My hands still hurt from holding the handlebars so tight! And my friend Kerry must be a much braver biker than I! Wow. Jon told me to in front at first but that scared me for some reason and I was happier with him in front - he went on and warned me from time to time of different obstacles. He told me to reach for a tree and hang on if I was in trouble. Hmmm - worked for him, not so much me. He held onto lots of trees that day waiting for me though - he'd go ahead, grab a tree, wait until he saw me, and go again. I looked down at my garmin for the first time after what had seemed like eternity and we'd gone a whopping 2 miles!?!^&*^$ The loop was 8 miles. Before we got there I assumed I'd go 2 or 3 times, knowing Jon wanted to go that long at least. After 2 miles I had decided 1 loop would be plenty! Mountain biking is just plain crazy, and the term "single track" is right. At one point I yelled ahead to Jon that fat people would be screwed trying to bike there. He yelled back his typical "Kathleen!" in disbelief that I said that. I yelled ahead that I was serious - that if your butt was wider than your handlebars you had no hope because some of the clearings were just inches wider than my bars. There were several times I should have totally run into a tree but somehow didn't. Roots. Ooooh the roots. My butt still hurts. Jon was entertained by my sound effects and I guess they continued to let him know how far back I was. I squealed, yelped, grunted, etc at every turn, bump, hill, or root.

I was riding the thin line between having fun and being scared out of my mind and then I had my first fun. There were several concrete landscaping block-type things leading up to one of the wooden bridges and I didn't get my wheel/bike up on the blocks in time. It was a move I'd never pull on a road bike but I honestly thought the mountain bike tires would get up over the lip of the concrete things with no problem. Apparently not - bam! I was down. I hit on my left hip and left elbow. Both my feet came out with no problem but the bike was on my left leg when I was down and much heavier than my tri bike.

I knew Jon would be back shortly and he later said he knew I wasn't totally okay when he heard my sound effects and then nothing. I started to try to get up but just decided to wait for him instead. I hoped no one was behind us because I was sprawled across the whole trail. My arm hurt pretty bad. I didn't think I'd broken it, and knew I'd have to get back up and ride, but it still didn't feel great. Jon got back and picked up the bike and then me and I got myself back together. Wow. My first fall off a bike as an adult. It was bound to happen sometime, but at the same time I think this was still minor compared to what a similar fall on the road would have been like. I looked at my garmin and saw 3.4 miles on it. Ha! We weren't even halfway. Jon started to try to brush me off and it hurt too bad - plus I looked cool covered in dirt and leaves...right?

So anyways, after that it seemed he was just gaining confidence and I was losing it. Each time he stopped to wait I think he was having to wait longer and longer (Sorry Jon). Not long after my fall I yelled up to him that he had earned himself an all-expense paid trip on a second loop without me! So the rest was uneventful, or very eventful, depending on how you look at it. I managed most of the obstacles pretty well and Jon said he was surprised how well I did on some of the areas he came through thinking "oh no, she's going to eat it."

We got back after an hour and ten minutes of riding time. Yes, that means I averaged 6.9 mph. Watch out. I took my long sleeve fleece-lined jersey off (thank God I had that on - otherwise I'm certain I would have busted my elbow open) and found some lovely skin inside the jersey and a puffy elbow with a decent sized scratch on it. I sent Jon on his way for lap 2 and got settled in the truck. I rummaged through everything I had and found 1 barbie bandaid. Of all the stuff I usually have, and the stuff I'd been carrying around for my toes, I had 1 stinkin bandaid. Jon came back in 45 minutes. Wow. I slowed him down that much! He went out again and I settled in for a little nap. When I woke up my arm hurt - bad. I could still move my fingers and stuff but it hurt. I think the broken skin was catching on my sleeve and was bothering me so I had Jon put the barbie bandaid on it. We packed up and stopped to get ice/snacks on the way home. The ice hurt it even worse. My hip was feeling awesome too, but I at least didn't break any skin there.

I got home and took a shower and then a bath. I couldn't use that arm to wash my hair or anything and was thinking this may be a fun few days. Jon had a similar fall over the summer and I had to put his deodorant on for him because he couldn't do it - I figured we were heading for the same thing. I soaked in epsom salt in the bath and that seemed to be a miracle cure. I have been able to freely move it since then! Ice cream scooping so far has been the only thing that has hurt - that and hitting it on things, but that is obvious.

Here are some pictures of all the pretty colors I'm getting from it.

Sunday:

Monday:

Tuesday: