Mountain Biking is hard.

I went out to Rothrock to test out the XC course today after class on the shop's Epic demo. Full suspension means I'll go fast right? Goddamn mountain biking is hard. First thing I noticed right off is that you need a lot more arm strength than road riding. Pushing and pulling that front end around is a lot more effort than even wacking my bars around in a sprint on the road. I progressively took better lines through obstacles while doing the technical loop on the course. I got to a point where I figured if I were lucky I'd probably be able to ride all the level rock gardens during the race. I handled the steep rocky downhill section a lot better than I thought I would. I just placed my nuts all the way behind the saddle and tried to touch the brakes only when I really needed to, which was most of the time. I did sucessfully hold a front wheelie for what seemed like 10 feet, but I'm sure was closer to 2 feet, over one of the steeper sections. Endoing on that descent would fucking hurt.

Speaking of endoing....I was riding the smooth back section of the course and being a bit lazy taking my lines through things when I pulled my front wheel up onto a large rock thinking I'd just ride over it. Well it was steep as shit on the other side and I quickly found myself flying over my bike. Fucking a. Bust up both of my knees and must have landed oddly on my left hand because it's sore as hell. I noticed later on that my right knee is swollen pretty bad, pretty near to my surgical site... not a good memory. I'm not sure if I'll race tomorrow at this point, I'm sure it'd be fun, but I don't want to push myself if I'm swollen for a race that ultimately doesn't mean much to me.... props to mountain bikers, that shit is hard. I had fun when I took good lines through the gardens, but I really don't see myself consistently going out to Rothrock with the desire to beat the shit out of myself.