"You do know they are h.core right?"

Every once in a while a few random strangers end up sleeping on my couch. I love it! It's usually people we hear about through the church who need a place to stay for a few days, sometimes it is friends of friends who need a place to crash. My sisters and I have an unspoken pact that our door is always open to whoever need it so long as they have a good reference.

Last year Bethany spent a few months backpacking through Thailand and Cambodia. Our guests this weekend were people she had connected with through that trip.

As we were sitting around on Friday afternoon talking and chatting I learned that our guests had brought their bikes with them, being the generous, outgoing host that I am, I excitedly exclaimed that I would LOVE to go biking with them on Saturday morning. Everyone laughed and was happy. As was I, until 4 seconds later when Bethany asked, "you do know that they are h.core downhill mountain bikers right?"

I didn't.

But I had already committed.

So the next morning we loaded up the bikes and drove to Kamloops Bike Ranch where my new (and incredibly patient) friends taught me how to downhill mountain bike.

Rule 1. Don't sit down.
(So grateful this was rule one or my dreams of one day having children would be squashed)

Rule 2. Keep your weight back.
(I'm thinking this was my problem in August when I tried downhill biking and fell off my bike)

Rule 3. It is ok to go slow (or walk) down certain areas until you are comfortable.
(Thank you!)

I was excited to learn and to try this new sport. They loaned me a sweet top-of-the-line bike, and it looked awesome with my dinky little bike helmet. After unloading the bikes at the top of the mountain, learning the rules and starting down the road I started to get nervous. Especially as we picked up speed and headed toward some very steep birms (tight corners). Things were not looking good for me.  But I pushed through my fears, walked a bit, biked a bit, and made it down the mountain without crashing or dying.

Round two, I was going so incredibly h.core down a double black diamond, doing flips and jumps, and totally ripping things up, (yeah right) I got a flat tire.

And on the third time down, low and behold we realized that we had been going down blue and black runs, and that there were actually green runs available for newbies like me. Someone had smashed the signs! (hooligans). I put myself on the green run and the rest of my morning was GREAT. I'm not saying the green runs were 'easy', but I definitely only felt like I cheated death three times on the way down instead of constantly on the other runs.

 

The view from the top. Looking west toward Kamloops

 

This is part of the ranch. Notice how there are many different ridges. You do not want to end up on the wrong one or you will have a hard time getting back to where you need to be.

 

Finially got the hang of it! This here is right after a narrow (i.e. 1 foot wide) section of trail that ran up the side of the bluff. If you fell off the trail you fell down the side of the cliff oh... probably 200 feet into a rocky ravine. I'm pretty happy in this picture. Having tons of fun.

Remember what I said about getting on the wrong ridge? Yeah... I don't know how I got onto this one, but I did. It took some work to get back to the main trail and in-bounds area. Not as much work as 20minutes later when I REALLY got lost and had to do a big hike to get back to where I wanted to be.

 

All in all, it was a fantastic morning. I had a lot of fun, tried something new, laughed a lot, screamed a bit, and totally want to do it again!