Bouncy Bouncy

Following the previous days introspectiveness, and then the memorials call to do things you want to do, and not let them pass you by, it was last Friday I decided to finally give downhill mountain biking a go.

All I can say is that I would be hooked if I could afford it!

After getting fully kitted out with shin and knee pads, elbow and arm pads, and a full on helmet, I was finally given the most glamorous piece of kit, a $5500 Kona mountain bike. I have to say now (For Rik's benefit!) that it wasn't a big red bouncy bike as depicted in the previous blog, but was in fact a bouncy green bike. In all other ways though it was the same bike as that shown.

It really is pretty strange trying to get used to riding it to start with. Just riding over to the bottom of the lifts (About 50 yards) you notice yourself bouncing up and down whilst you pedal. You also soon notice (By dint of nearly going over the handlebars just slowing down!) that the brakes are pretty good, being disc brakes all round.

The next challenge was getting on the damned lift. Most people seem to have a method of just pushing it straight on, but not being quite so proficient I ended up just carrying it and dropping it into the relevant slots! Luckily it didn't fall off as all the lifties were previous colleagues, and so messing up in front of them would have been seriously embarassing.

With the lift system, the bikes go in special bike racks that have replaced the chairs that used to be there. You then follow the bikes up on the next chair, and the lifties at the top grab the bikes and hand them to you as you get off the chair. Seeing as I knew the lifties working that day pretty well, that gave them free reign to grab my bike before I could get off the chair and have a little ride around on it, as I wait for them to return to sight!

As for the actual experience of downhill biking, all I can say is that it's awesome fun. Even on the green beginner trails I started on, I had such a blast. These trails were generally pretty mellow, but steep and narrow enough to give you a blast, with numerous high speed corners and dips, followed by switchback after switchback, all of which had big berms built around the sides to charge around.

I even managed to graduate up to the blue intermediate trails, and relatively famous ones at that, such as Heart of Darkness, Fantastic, Crank It Up and best of all B-Line. B-Line is great, with superb single track winding through some pretty dense forest, before wide open rough rocky stretches where you reach top speeds whilst still bouncing around. I even managed to gain enough confidence to get tiny amounts of air on Heart of Darkness and Crank It Up. H of D was probably my favourite trail. After a few scary jumps I took it easy on, theres a nice easy drop that I found it ok to get air on, and this awesome bit where it's pretty narrow single-track, a small cliff on your left, and a big drop on your right down to Fitzsimmons Creek about 50 yards below. It certainly gets your adrenalin going.

These kind of faster tracks were more to my liking. I did try it down two other intermediate trails, Ho Chi Minh and Devils Club. Both were very tight and technical, over tree roots and the like, and due to the torrential rain the night before, they were pretty damn difficult. Especially Devils Club, as there was also some super narrow boardwalk section, some of which where pretty steeply downhill, and slightly of camber. Of course, in such wet conditions it was near impossible to slow down, as too much of the back brake meant that the tail started sliding off the edge of the boardwalk, and the front brake was a complete no-no. This was the only trail that made me fall. Of course I managed to fall right onto a little spiky tree stump, giving me a big bruise and a dead leg for the afternoon!

All in all it was ace, and it exercised muscles I didn't remember having. I wish in one way that I hadn't had a go at it till the week before I left, cos then it wouldn't be there tempting me to have another go. All day yesterday I kept thinking of the trails, and thinking how I could improve my technique, despite knowing that I wouldn't be having another go in a while.

Still, with my improved pay, hopefully I will be doing it again before I leave. I'll try and make sure someone is there to take photo's this time though!