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I know my life has changed for the better when, instead of sleeping in on Thanksgiving day, I am getting up early to go out for a ride in the woods.

Graham Hills Park has been the best measurement of my mountain biking progress because it’s basically where I started riding and where I’ve done most of my rides. It’s also got one relentless climb that I’ve yet to do without resting, but the amount of resting has certainly gone down. There are also a number of technical sections that I used to shy away from and can now confidently ride through/across.

There’s still plenty of learn and accomplish but I’m quite happy with my progress so far.

There is a place in Connecticut that I ride at that provides no end of 3rd grade giggling for me and some of my friends. In fact, I believe the name of this park is a good test of character for people. I appreciate those who not only laugh at it but take up the challenge of coming up with their own little joke about the place.

This place is of course Mianus River Park. I’ve got to pause every time I say the name of the park, if only to collect my composure. Depending on the audience this is often followed by sentences such as:

• Mianus is actually really beautiful.
• There were a bunch of people in Mianus this weekend.
• It was actually too wet to ride in Mianus the other day.

And it’s quite true – it’s a beautiful place to ride and a lot of people (hikers, bikers, dog walkers) go there. And yes, it’s generally frowned upon to ride trails when they are muddy.

I went to Sprain Ridge Park this morning with a few guys from the New York City Mountain Bike Meetup group. The ride was at a brisk pace with not many breaks, so I was spending a lot of time catching up and trying to catch my breath. But as Pat Metheney suggests, it’s good to ride/play with people better than you.

We stopped to practice a few technical parts of the trail but sadly I was not mentally prepared for them and didn’t attempt them, BUT I did have a bit of a realization about why. I find that I’m not so afraid of the hill or drop or whatever we’re attempting, but more concerned about what happens AFTER the rollover/drop. I’m afraid of what happens once I make it through the obstacle. Will I be going to fast? Will I lose control? Will I run into something else and not be ready for it?

I believe this feeling is from the fact that that’s exactly how I ended up breaking my ankle while trying to skateboard. I was pushing myself to go down a 6 foot ramp, which scared me, but ended up being alright at it. The problem was that I hurt myself after picking up too much speed from going down the ramp.

Now to move past that fear…

I’ve gotten a lot of comments about being thinner the last few months but this post isn’t actually about that.

On Sunday I went to Cunningham Park in Queens, NY with a friend from one of my mountain biking meetup groups. It was my first time at Cunningham and I definitely would ride there a gain. No giant hills, really clear signs and lots of fun, winding single track. And it’s only about 35 minutes away.

We started off on the east side of the park and spent a good amount of time practicing on a “skinny”. Skinnies are long, narrow sections of track, often on logs or wooden boards. They can be a few inches to several feet over the ground. I managed to get across it a number of times and felt good about it, especially since a month ago I could barely get across a piece of flat wood on the ground.

I had my camera, so I once again video taped what we were doing.

Next we checked out a area of jumps and burms, but I don’t feel like I’m quite ready for jumps. It’s honestly not a primary interest of mine, but I wouldn’t mind learning how to do some jumping eventually.

After that we headed to the west side of the park where there was lots of cool, winding, jungle-like single track. On the way back out we tried the skinny a few more times and then made our way to the exit. Sushi at Mr. Wasabi in Queens topped off the evening. All in all a really good day of mountain biking.