A.S.S. Rears It's Ugly Head

(Disclaimer- this is not an actual picture of me biking. They clearly look way to professional)

That's right, Arnett Self-Assured Syndrome. Turns out I have plenty of it. When we went on our hike up at Sundance over the 4th of July I saw some mountain bikers out and about on the mountain. I thought it looked fun and thanks to A.S.S. I was sure I would have no problems mastering it. I mean I've ridden a bike before, how hard could it be?

Pretty difficult as it turns out. mtn. biking, is not quite the same as riding around on a bike with a banana seat.....who knew?!?!

I rented a bike last week from Outdoors Unlimited at BYU. I had it for the week and took it for it's first spin last Friday. I went just off 8th north in Orem, on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. I had 3 problems really.

1. I didn't understand how my gears worked and so it was WAY more ridiculously hard than it needed to be.

2. The sheer cliff on one side intimidated me a bit, therefore I was more cautious going downhill and so didn't have enough speed to get up the uphill.

3. I'm not as coordinated as one would think to look at me. I hear biking is a bit better when you stay on the bike the whole time. Although the view from the scrub oak wasn't so bad, I chose to look at my falls as "rest breaks".

I went out again yesterday, this time I was smarter and recruited a mtn. biking expert who couldn't have been more helpful and encouraging. I was shown how the gears actually worked, given many helpful tips and tricks that made it so much more enjoyable.

My biking friend is some sort of professional biking machine and since riding uphill on a bike made my heart feel like it would beat out of my chest. I had my friend bike on for a bit whilst I went at my significantly slower pace.

Maybe it makes me weird, but I think all those people taking the lifts up at Sundance were cheating a bit. For me the best part is the sense of accomplishment when after all that hard work of getting up the mountain you finally turn around and get to fly back down the hill (and obviously I use the term "fly" loosely as a description of what I did yesterday). I can't think that the downhill would be as much fun without the work of getting yourself uphill.

Verdict: I really liked it and think I could like it more and more as I got better at it. So here's hoping I have plenty of opportunities to get good. Up for a bike ride anyone?