quick update! Thanks again for all advice.
So, had a good pasta dinner on Saturday night, made sure nicely hydrated, forced a bit of porridge down (did not calculate porridge cooling time into pre-ride early morning prep time! 🙄 ), plenty of water on board (e.g. first time I have had to stop for a pee during ride, i really was not hydrated before now 😳 ).
Felt great during, plenty energy, felt great after and quick recovery. Result.
However – I rode like sh1t! Missing turns, responding too late, not looking far enough down the trail, reacting rather than pre-paring for techy bits. Resulted in a mahoosive over the bars onto f**king jaggy rocks (badly mistimed log hop), a severly dented thigh and a sore left arm below elbow that seemed OK, until we noticed blood dripping out the bottom of my sleeve at the bottom of the first downhill. ****. Now stitched and tetanus-ed and feeling a bit foolish. 😳
Lesson 1) We did not have a first aid kit with us 😯 . We ride decent distance, on technical trails now, and really should have one in our packs. We had one back at the car (thank goodness). taking care of that now.
Lesson 2) I have always been a firm believer in bio-rythms (physical, mental and spiritual), and whilst my physical was on a peak, the other 2 were deffo lagging. Not sure what I could have done to improve, except probably slow down, give myself a stern talking-to, focus on the basics (heels down, head up, look ahead) and get on with it! 😈
Lesson 3) Really need a new full suspension to complement the HT 29er. we are riding more and more techy trails, I need a tallboy. 😉
So, purpose of this is to confirm that the answer to most issues is indeed a new bike…
Cheers all!
Kev
