(Note: Thanks to Carla for letting me steal these pictures. Or maybe I didn’t really ask and just took them – but, details. I totally meant to take my camera along to document this, but, forgot it thanks to a barking dog who was very annoyed with me for leaving her alone.)
Yesterday marked the first time in our (very short) biking careers that we headed off road. Our friends Iron Mark (a Beach to Battleship finisher/triathalete extraordinaire/veteran mountain biker) and Carla (a medical professional) offered to take us out and show us the ropes on some of the trails behind UNCW. I figured that between heading out with a seasoned endurance athlete AND a medical professional, we would be in good hands.
I am not going to lie – I was a little bit apprehensive about this experiment. I am not the most coordinated person ever – and Danny, well, he is the king of weird injuries and ailments. But, I went out and bought a shiny new mountain bike, and I figured I might as well use it for its intended purpose once before deciding to stick to roads.
So, having said all that – I pretty much had an absolute blast riding off road. Once I sorted out that I was most comfortable leaving it in 3rd gear (I picked a little too much speed for my liking when we went down the first hill), I really enjoyed myself. There were a few spots where the trail got very narrow – and I did dismount a time or two and walk in a few places where I felt the tree roots might make things a little ambitious for a novice – but, we spent a little over an hour riding and it flew by.
(Mark took this “action shot” and said that it was too humid and steamy to get a good picture. Personally, I think that I was just moving so fast that I was like a blur to the camera)
I had my Garmin hooked to the bike and the total mileage it gave me afterwards was about 5.75 miles. I am not sure how accurate that is though, because Mark’s bike computer was telling him over 6 miles. The statistic that I was MOST impressed with though – was that my trusty Garmin told me that I burned 763 calories. Not bad for an hours worth of biking. To compare – last Saturday, Danny and I road 6.5 miles in the neighborhoods around our house and I only burned around 340 calories (again, according to the Garmin – I have no clue how accurate that actually is).
All in all, it was a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon/evening. We headed out around 6 and when we were wrapping up the sun was starting to go down a little bit. The trails were (obviously) shaded – but, it was still incredibly humid when we first started. My shirt was pretty much soaked through when we finished – and I am SO glad that I brought a shirt to change into before going to pick up dinner.
We will not, however, be hitting the trails by ourselves anytime soon. Mark has been riding over there since high school and knows them really well. They were not all that well marked though, and until I get comfortable that I know my way around, we will stick with group riding.
Oh, and Danny survived too. He was pretty stoked to have finished without taking a header off the bike. It worked out much better for him than the great skiing experiment of Winter 2010.
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