A move to the dark side.

First of all I must apologise for the lack of pictures in this update, I am writing this at work and will add the pictures once I get home tonight.

Well the new bike arrived and the past few weeks have seen me pretty much use it exclusively, somehow the road bikes just cannot compete with off road riding.

After a few bimbles along the canal to check that all the bits were working, we headed over to Minley Manor (a local off road riding area) to have a bit of fun on something more serious. About 20 mins into riding and the first puncture, also left a fairly sizeable hole in the tyre - good job I had some new tyres at home!!. Puncture was dealt with a the tyre survived the rest of the ride and trip home.

I have now decided to do some mountain bike events this year.

My first event was last Sunday, a XC mountain bike race at Deepcut. With barely any recent singletrack riding behind me I was not sure whether it was a wise idea or not, but decided to give it a go in one of the fun races.

Lined up at the start and saw I was the only female in the race - excellent a debut victory!!! The race began with a straight and corner on a fire road and then the singletrack arrived. It was great fun, though hard work and the grin did not leave my face for the entire ride. It came as rather a shock when completely knackered I discovered I was not yet half way round!! I got a second wind though and in general the second half of the lap was not as tough as the first, or so I thought. Nearing the finish was a steep downhill with a ditch at the bottom before a climb back up, I headed down and decided to give getting across the ditch a go, I was too slow and that only meant one thing!! The front wheel caught and stopped, I of course continued to move forwards with a graceful flight over the handlebars. No damage done and after untangling the bike it was off up the steep climb and towards the finish. One of the guys in the crowd set he would get the footage onto youtube but as yet I have not found it.

Overall the race was great fun if hard work, I am really looking forward to giving the full autumn series a go later in the year.

I have a few more events lined up over the summer:

23/05/2010 - Test Valley Tour Hot MTB Challenge (80km around north west Hampshire)
13/06/2010 - Henley-on-Thames triathlon (sprint tri - I really must do some swimming)
04/07/2010 - Army Cycling Union Are You Tough Enough (4 hour MTB enduro event)
29/08/2010 - Torq 12:12 TORQ In Your Sleep (12 hour MTB enduro event)
25/09/2010 - XTD (off road duathlon)

So the next few months are going to spent off road riding as much as possible, not sure how often the road bikes will get an airing.

Need to purchase some decent lighting options soon so I can practice some night riding in the woods prior to the August enduro. Thanks to redbikes for the info on lights, it helped a lot.

So it looks like I am moving to the dark side, the house move has put us within a few miles of numerous off road riding areas and with 3 XC race series a year within 10 miles of my house, it seems daft not to get involved.