Thanks for asking SN. The ride went well, except... I came up on a pair of slower riders, nice looking ones at that, and the rider in front of me pulls off the trail to let me pass, but instead of passing I thought I'd let her lead a while so I stopped next to a tree and put out my hand to grab the tree without needing to unclip out of my pedals. Something we all do frequently. Well, the tree that I grabbed onto, which was at least 4 inches in diameter was dead and gave way. I then proceeded fall down the hill on my right side, still clipped into my pedals. I slid a short way and came to a stop on top of the dead tree and several other branches.
Lucky for me only a bit of tree rash on my right forearm. The rider who had pulled over for me saw the whole thing, the crash was so loud that her friend who was 50 ft up the trail and around the bend yelled back asking if her friend was okay.
I got up, climbed back up the hill with my bike, laughed out loud, and said to her, "I guess I chose poorly." They went on ahead while I pulled out a antiseptic wipe out of my Camelback and cleaned off the scrape on my arm.
Other than that, the ride went well. A little slow, I only averaged 8.2 mph, normally I would average closer to 10 mph but having not ridden in almost 4 months, I thought that wasn't too bad. I took a couple extra rest stops as well. I think I'm going to start riding regularly again 2-3 times per week (weather permitting).
It's been really rainy here lately. We only go 3 or 4 days and it rains again. Rained all day today.
Been riding the IP-036 with the suspension fully open and even that still feels like it's beating me up a bit more than I like. Also, my rear end is more sore than usual, both due to not riding in a while. I may hold off taking the hard tail out for a while until I get several rides under my belt.
