My hands are gradually improving now, which I am absolutely estatic about. I still can’t even dream of riding a mountain bike, but I did buy something to keep me busy: a recumbent.
It’s rather funny (and sad) that there are now two Great Divide Race participants who are reduced to riding recumbents. Alan Tilling and I came up with the idea independently. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
I spent the first week just getting used to it. It’s a completely different discipline of cycling. Actually, it’s really fun. So I rode around town and on the river path, just happy to be outside turning a crank. Of course the voice in the back of my mind kept begging me to take it off road. So I rode in the washes and on the dirt side. So far so good.
After convincing myself that leaning hard to turn was OK and did not result in disasturous crashes, I felt I was ready to conquer off road ‘benting. My crying feet had also finally recovered from whatever was making it difficult to even sit at a computer.
Yesterday I rode the ‘suburban assault’ paved/dirt route in the foothills. I don’t normally consider this a mountain bike ride, but on a recumbent it most definitely is. Actually, I rode almost all of it, I just couldn’t climb out of some of the wash crossings. On the downhills I was laughing out loud as I got tossed around. Too much fun…
Today I tried riding the sentinel ridge trail. I wouldn’t consider it a hard trail, but without basic mountain biking skills even a strong rider would be walking. On a recumbent this trail is technical as hell. I gave it a solid effort, but could not keep up momentum for more than 50 feet. If it was rocky and steep, it seemed impossible. Rocky – OK. Steep – OK. Both? Forget it. I smacked the dirt at least five times, laughing on all but the fifth, which hurt. I decided to walk and wait until I had a bit more skill developed.
I can see that a lot more is possible than I’m able to master forth at the present time. I can only begin where I am.
Falling on my hands would definitely be bad, though, so I’m going to stick with rides like Suburbo for now.
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