mountain biking

Eric and I are taking a pretty hard core mountain biking class this semester at UVU. Every class I'm going out of my comfort zone because during the 2 years we've had our mountain bikes, I've never taken it off road (and that's all we do in this class)! Eric has taken it off road a bit, so he's intermediate/advanced, I'm a beginner. In our class I'm usually towards the end of the line (I'm not the only one, there is a girl at my same level, I'm glad I'm not the only slow poke) so Eric stays in the back and keeps us company. Someone has to hold the end of the line, so Eric lets the T.A. go in front and he takes care of everyone at the end (the teacher rarely makes it to class on time so the T.A. really is the one in charge). Eric is so sweet and lets us go in front of him so he can make sure we are doing well, using the skills we've learned, and don't fall. He is patient when I'm slow and have to walk my bike up a hill (there are times when everyone has to walk their bike b/c the hill is so steep) and motivates me to keep going...that's what I need. Sometimes I feel like I'm holding him back, but I've already seen a lot of improvement since the first day...one day I'll catch up with him.

For class we have to do 1.5 hours of riding on our own time. In this picture we're riding the Provo trail starting at Vivian's Park, for our labs only 2 out of 7 can be on paved trails...we tried to go to Sundance to take the lift and ride down but since it had rained the day before we couldn't go down...so we resorted to the Provo trail. Not as tough but still a lot of fun. The colors of the leaves are gorgeous. This picture doesn't do it justice, they were vibrant red, orange and yellow. It was almost breathtaking riding through the tunnel of trees. Too bad winter has already started, they won't stay that color for long. It's been a lot of fun to take this class together. I don't even mind all my scrapes and bruises. Tomorrow we are leaving for Fruita, Colorado to go on a mountain bike excursion with our class (we have to go on a mandatory overnight camping trip). We'll be going on some tough terrain, I'm excited for the challenge. We'll see how I keep up...I may even come back as an intermediate...