glentress mountain biking

11 february
saturday.

went with jane-marie and friends to mountain bike at glentress. it was a great opportunity to see a different part of scotland in a different way. i hired a bike for the day. the boys went off and did the crazy difficult trails, and we did the easy trails. i was glad there was another girl, louise, who came with jane-marie and i who hadn't done it before.

did the easiest one (green) as a warm up/introduction and then the blue trail.

it was extremely difficult. i definitely had to stop more times than i would have liked. and had to walk my bike at parts. and was really scary at points. i'm glad i did it. jane-marie is much better at it. i can't imagine what the guys must be like. i felt bad as we were going up because i felt like i was holding people back even when letting them pass.

and i learned the real purpose behind gears and shifting. suburban mountain biking as a kid doesn't truly involve gear shifting, really. maybe just a bit for fun or between a few gears. but this definitely did. and the shocks and whatever. although i do think the size of the frame they gave me was possibly too small. felt a little bmx-y at times when i was trying to be more concerned about what i was doing. interestingly, i did have the thought that something like flying through the air doing trapeze stuff didn't concern me but mountain biking did. interesting perspective on sports. i think it would be a sport to get into earlier in life to build up the confidence and skills. but i can definitely see the appeal to it.

up at the top we were definitely in the cloud cover amongst the evergreens. it was a neat atmosphere. beautiful views and nature all around. that was really cool.

the first bit going down was a bit terrifying. the middle bits were quite fun and probably my favorite. but i didn't fall even once or hurt myself, so that was a success. was a good experience all around. and i'm really glad jane-marie and ian invited me to join them.

photos: http://blogographannex.blogspot.com/2012/03/mountain-biking.html