The ride took place in Mission Trails (http://www.mtrp.org/), which is a huge 5,800 acre regional park, and was sponsored by San Diego Mountain Biking Association (http://sdmba.com). There were three groups: Advanced, Intermediate, and Mellow. Andy signed us both up for the Mellow group but if he had gone without me, would have probably gone with the Advanced group (yikes!). There were about 15 of us in the group and everyone was relatively new to mountain biking.
Andy has warned me that every time he's gone out riding in CA, it's like going to a fancy bicycle showroom. And I don't know that much about bikes at all, I've only picked up on things because of Andy but I noticed that he may actually be onto something. Even in our mellow group, everyone had forks and suspension which are nice to have riding off road, but not necessary especially if you're just a beginner (those things alone can cost thousands of dollars, not to mention the frames can cost just as much).
I decided to ride one of Andy's bikes known as the Salsa. I felt pretty comfortable on the bike during most of the ride. There were definitely parts that I feel were NOT mellow and were maybe a bit more on the intermediate side but that's when I would just hop off my bike and walk it. There were other parts though that sort of snuck up on me and when you're at a certain speed, you can't really stop because if you do, you'll eat it all over the trail so you just have to hold onto your handle bars with a death grip and ride on through. This is how I went down/through some spots that I was a little uncomfortable with.
We rode around the trails for about an hour and a half on a loop that was about 6-8 miles. Afterwards we met up with all the other groups and had FREE Chipotle and beer from Stone Brewery. Overall, it was a great evening and I even saw a rattlesnake on the trail!
We exchanged contact info with a few people from the ride in hopes of getting together in the future. One of the guys got in touch with us Saturday and offered us free tickets to the Padres game. Andy and I had just been talking about how it'd be fun to check out one of the games so we were both really excited. We get to the game only to find out we're by first base, 14 rows from the field. Pretty awesome!
It was Pride weekend last weekend, so Andy and I woke up, made some strawberry and chocolate pancakes, and rode bikes down to Hillcrest. We met up with some of his friends and hung out on the street, watching the parade. There were some crazy floats and lots of people hanging out having a great time!
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