Sunday, May 25, 2008

A non-awful ride!

If you've been reading, you'll know that I've been fighting some serious back pain when I've been riding the mountain bike. It's really made riding way less than fun lately, and was getting really old. Well, about a week or two ago I visited Grace at the fitness studio where she works, and she had me do several exercises while she observed. As it turns out, for some reason, my back muscles are activating too soon, which means they're working too hard, and thus are getting fatigued before they should. So, she gave me a series of exercises which I've been doing exclusively.

Last week, I got my rear shock back from Push Industries, which meant I could finally get my Santa Cruz Superlight back together. With the back pain problems, the Scott Scale hardtail just hasn't been doing it for me lately... so I was eager to get the SCSL back on the trail. On Wednesday and Thursday I disassembled the Scale, and rebuilt the Superlight.

So, for once, I was actually eager to get on the trails on Friday, and I joined Grace, BVL, DZ, and Lance for a ride in Wissahickon. I am happy to report that with the suspension -- and, more importantly -- Grace's exercises, my back was FAR better. Not perfect, but I was actually able to ride with a reasonable amount of speed, and lead the pack several times.

The suspension on the Santa Cruz needs some fine tuning, on fast, rocky downhills, the wheels felt like they were skipping off the rocks, but other than that it was SO nice to feel rear travel again.

I'm actually looking forward to riding the mountain bike again!

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