Sunday, February 21, 2010

Bike Ride, Hamsterley Forest

I went for a ride yesterday with some friends at Hamsterley Forest. As well as wanting to be fit for snowboarding, I've started to train for a 3-day ride later this year: the coast to coast.

I think we ended up doing around 12/13 miles, all off-road. There were some pretty nice hills in there and the terrain was quite difficult in places. Actually, there was quite a lot of snow up there. It was kinda weird being out in the hills, with trees, rocks and snow around us, a week before going snowboarding. Hamsterley is close to where I grew up, and still not far from where I currently live; after visiting yesterday I started to wonder why I haven't been before now.

I read an article a while ago, Whitelines I think, that explored the similarities between mountain biking and snowboarding. This was the first time that I've used in bike in that kind of environment, and I really enjoyed it. Some of the downhills were really exciting (or scary?) Hopefully I'll do more of this in the future.

During the ride the thing that was toughest was sitting on the saddle; as time went on my bum was really aching. I guess that's to be expected given that this is the first time I've ridden an actual bike (excluding a bmx) in around 5 years. Up until now I've just been using an exercise bike in the gym. This morning, I woke up with the top of my back being pretty stiff. What I'm pleased with is that my legs don't feel tired, I handled the ride pretty well.

I'm not super fit or anything like that, but I am fairly happy with my current level of fitness. Bring on the shred...

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