I keep forgetting that you're coming from years of road riding. Must be tough to unlearn all those habits and techniques in the transition to singletrack. I have never done any road cycling, except as a kid through the neighbourhood on my old 10 speed. All of my riding in the past 30 years has been on a mountain bike. What I am "learning" now, is not actually new, but just the relearning of stuff that I already knew years ago, before taking a 15 year break from the sport (read: kids, house, small business to run....).
In that context, riding on the new bikes is a piece of cake -- lighter weight, suspension, better geometry, better tires, shifters, the works. All of the skills that Terryl and I learned 30 years ago were on rigid, steel frame bikes. Tire selection was minimal -- Specialized Ground Control and Panaracer Smoke and Dart...that's about it. The bike's suspension was our knees and elbows. But we still ripped up the trails, and got pretty darn good at it, too. We rode just about any trail we could find, except the rockiest and gnarliest. But shallow river crossings, steep descents, deep mud were candy to us.
Ah, but what a fun sport it is. We love it. Next best thing to skiing, in my books. Great to hear that you and Lynn are enjoying it so much. Keep smiling!
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