So along with the bike preparations and sorting the luggage out, I thought I should get out there and practice my off-road riding skills. Now, I am not great at off-road riding, but normally get by, however, for this trip I just felt as though I might need to just up my game slightly. So, Nathan organised a meet up of riders doing the trip, in Wales where we could all ride together over some great green lane routes. I think it was actually more so he could assess everybody's riding skills and see what he has let himself in for!
Now it has been a while since I have done any riding like this and the first morning session had me wondering what the hell I was doing. It didn't feel good, and I was slightly concerned that I had lost most of the precious little off-road riding skills I once had. Come day two, I was enjoying it more, although a water section stopped me in my tracks and I had to have a helping push by Nathan and another guy to get me out. I won't lie, this knocked my confidence.
Despite this, the weekend was a success, if only to point out the short comings of my off-road riding skills and lack of fitness as my legs were certainly feeling it. We also got to discuss parts of the up coming trip with Nathan and get a clearer picture of how things are going to be run.
So, back home, I took time to reflect on the weekend and workout how to improve both my riding skills and my fitness.
Now, I haven’t been to a gym in years and didn’t want to go now either as I have to be careful with getting fatigued. So, I just started to do a few basic exercises at home.
Starting with the cross-trainer, which after one minute I got off. Then I done another minute on the rowing machine. Then after getting off that, I done a few stomach crunchies and a few press ups and that was it, my training schedule had started, although I knew I had to do better.
As for my riding, I got a friend who has done lots of enduro racing in the past to take me around the 'Thetford-loop' which involves various green lanes in the Thetford (Norfolk) area connected by some back roads. It lasted about three hours and had some great sand sections, which is certainly another area of my riding that I needed to improve on.
Oops, riding the deeper sand didn't go as expected!
Wind forward a few weeks, and I have been doing much better at my exercises and sand riding, so much so that I am starting to enjoy them both.
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