Chiang Mai Mountain Biking

Its 11 am on Sunday morning (March 29^th - I wrote this a while ago ... shameful) I can't wait to get online – yesterday was a big sporting day. I want to find out if Ireland beat Bulgaria, and who won the Australian Grand Prix, but most importantly, I need to find out how Old Alex 2^nd XI fared in the semi finals of the Irish Junior Cup against perennial rivals Hermes.


However, I just can't seem to drag myself out of bed. My body feels like it was put through the crazy G force of Formula One, fell victim to some crunching Football World Cup qualifier tackles, and it definitely feels like there were one or two tough Hermes shoulders in there too. The reason being, yesterday we took to the hills of Chiang Mai for some Mountain Biking.


We started the day full of bravado. By 3pm, I was certainly feeling a little less confident and a little more delicate. We began with a safety briefing and got the usual warnings and waiver forms out of the way and loaded into the jeep with our guides and two other novice bikers, Rebecca from Canada and Louise from Ireland. (Its funny, we seem to meet Irish people on every organised trip we do!).


After a slow, winding drive up the mountain, we dismounted and our bikes were unloaded from the roof-rack, while we were kitted out with helmets, knee and shin guards, elbow and forearm guards and back and chest protectors. I nearly laughed at them, we were beginners, how likely was it really that we would be hitting terrain so rough that falling off the bike would be a possibility. Its been a long time since I've come off a bike, it might have been the Raleigh apple in Wesley Heights – I loved that bike! Now, I'm not only glad I didn't laugh, but I am incredibly happy I had each and every piece of that safety equipment.


We familiarised ourselves with the bikes; gears, brakes,when to sit, when to stand, never to lean forward and had a little ride around a flat off road path. Perfect! I thought a few hours of this, would do the job nicely. Something a bit different, and a few hours of some good, long overdue exercise!


We were split into two groups, Rebecca and Louise in one and Schmo and I in another. With our guide Daniel (sporting a nasty graze half the length of his lower leg!), we headed off first down the tarmac path. It was a nice ride, downhill, fairly windy, fast but fun. All of a sudden he disappeared off the path ahead of me, followed by Schmo – here we go, the real stuff begins! What I expected to find for the remainder of the ride was flat, slightly dusty, off road trails – forest trails. Not so much. Within an hour, we had hit a path, just about wide enough for a car, which had a solid mud path down the centre and a network of little gulleys on the sides. The gulleys were invariably filled with leaves and pine needles and therefore at first, not too easy to see.


We continued on, at a quick enough pace – cue Fall # 1. As I rounded a corner, I was a substantial distance behind the others. I had very quickly learned that the absence of brake lights on a mountain bike, make it difficult to read when those ahead are braking so space between cyclists is essential. It's also important to be watching the ground ahead of you for rocks and gulleys and various other obstacles. Trying to keep all this in mind, I rounded a corner and disobeyed rule number one – keep your tyres flat. It was as if someone pulled a carpet out from underneath me and I just tipped over to the right. Thankfully, the same leaves and pine needles that aided the fall, also broke it. Dusty, leafy and with my pride slightly wounded, I fixed the chain, hopped back on, and sped on down to the other two, who were waiting at the next bend.


As we progressed, I realised my confidence had taken a bit of a knock. I was more cautious than before, something which I don't think, in retrospect, is particularly helpful when mountain biking. We hit some more mud paths, with gulleys, this time, deeper, with a narrower mud path between. This was to be the site of my second, more spectacular fall, and my excuses for staying in bed this morning! I was flying along the path, enjoying the speed, the rush of air, the bone shaking bumps. As I slowed down, trying to be careful of the gulley, my front wheel slipped in, followed by my back. If I were smart, I would have just kept the bike in the path of the gulley, reached its end and exited.


However, I have learned, I am at times, not that smart.


I tried to steer the bike out of the gulley, which was too deep for me to manage, lost my balance, tried to brake to slow down, hit something, instinctively grabbed at the brakes, fell forward onto the cross bar (ouch), went straight over the handle bars, bringing the bike with me and ultimately landing in a heap (ouch to the power of 2). I wasn't hurt that badly, some nice bruises and grazes, which would have been much worse without the safety gear, mainly wounded pride to be honest. But with that fall, I had well and truly lost my mojo! The remainder of the ride, I was the insolent kid at the back of the class whining that this was too hard. I tried a few more gulley sections, but a handful of near misses later, I hung my head in shame and walked down one section – I hate to be beaten!


As we pushed on, I gradually got a little confidence back, mainly on the easier path. We cycled on towards the lake and lunch, and as we did I gradually felt better on the bike, more like we were getting to know eachother than becoming the arch enemies it seemed so intent on making us earlier in the afternoon. The stubborn streak in me has surfaced now however, so I'm going to have to give mountain biking another go. It may knock me around a bit, but I have to give myself at least one more opportunity to return the beating!