Today, my friend Jodey and I visited east Mesa to ride some of the Hawes trail system. We were both interested in trying out new-to-us trails and potentially testing our resolve to “challenge ourselves” on the bike. Well, after our 10 mile ride, I can definitely say that Hawes is hard. That is, hard for someone who is hesitant about trying steep, rocky inclines and descents (at this point, you may ask why I mountain bike at all?). Because the Hawes trails are right in the middle of a rather posh residential area, we knew that the first couple of miles would be on residential streets, eventually leading to a trail access point.

When we hit the access point, this is what we saw:

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I wish the above picture did a better job of showing how crazy steep the beginning is. Normally, when I go for a mountain bike ride, I expect to ride my bike. Today, I mainly hiked the first few miles of the trail, accompanied by my bike. The trail was so steep that I actually lost traction, slipped, and fell. Also, I wasn’t a fan of the rutted trail (i.e., there was a narrow track that you either followed or avoided by riding on the sides of the trail) and the loose gravel/rock that made the trail slippery.

On a brighter note, it appears that any falls I’ve had while mountain biking occurred when I was OFF of my bike. Does that mean I can bike better than I can walk?

Our goal those first few miles was to reach the power towers, where the trail levels out a bit.

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Goal accomplished, albeit with a lot of huffing and puffing. The second half of the ride was MUCH more enjoyable, as we got to RIDE our bikes for more than 2 seconds at a time. I surprised myself a few times by successfully riding some downhill sections I wouldn’t have considered riding normally and even (halfheartedly) tried sessioning a boulder obstacle. Did you read that, my SAT (self-appointed trainer)? I tried doing something hard voluntarily!

The weather was beautiful today and we got to see some pretty views, like this one:

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All in all, a successful day: we didn’t incur any injuries, we tried something new, and stepped out of our comfort zones. Bonus: no boys to tell us what to do. 🙂