Exhausted, but Proud

Well, I finally did it. I went out with the Social Climbers. Jer and some of the women have been bugging me for months. I've been sort of apprehensive about joining; I didn't think I could keep up and I don't know the members very well. I rode a couple times with my mom and with Jer, that helped. The "early" start time also didn't help, yuck 8:45AM. Yesterday morning I was nervous, but Jer drove me up and everyone seemed happy to see me.

There were five of us: Sara, Jenny, Elaine, Liz, and myself. We started the ride, by heading up the Slade Connector to Colt's Foot. From Colt's Foot we rode to the bottom of Northwind, then the long, and I mean long, climb began. I could have sworn it was about an hour, in reality it was probably only like half an hour. At the top of Northwind we hit Cold Deck, which took us to the bench.

We spent some time looking at the gorgeous view and gossiping ;o) .

Coming down Liz was great, showing me techniques and explaining the easiest way to do things.
On the first short, open hill from the bench she demonstrated the proper way to sit to easily, and SAFELY, ride down.

We rode Toad's Ride to Tadpole coming down. Tadpole was a little scary in some places, but I did most of it. Elaine rode immediately in front of me and Liz behind. It really helped following Elaine, I couldn't see very far in front so I was on the scary stuff before I realized it was there. I only bailed once. It was over a section of largish rocks and I had to drop my bike or I'd have fallen. At the bottom of Tadpole everyone said how great it was that I managed to ride it all. They said they hadn't been able to ride it all their first times. At the bottom of Tadpole we rode a short section of Test Tube to get back to Northwind. From Northwind we rode Washing Machine down to Colt's Foot. I didn't ride a large section of Washing Machine. It was pretty technical. I think I could've ridden the rocks and hill and stuff if they weren't all together, but as it was I think I did pretty well. We took Colt's Foot to the Slade Connector and that was that.

After the ride we all ended up at the Bike Shop, Elaine and I rode together and Sara and Jenny drove. The ride was great and Jer was proud of me. I'm going to go again, but I still haven't decided if I actually liked it. Going up was really hard and coming down was scary. I think that in time the up will get easier, Liz told me it would be a third easier next week, and the down will get less scary. I only had to walk once going up, and just for like ten fifteen feet. We stopped four times for breaks on the way up.

All in all it was thumbs up, not down. :oD

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