Yesterday, I did my first trail ride of any significance for the year. I rode about 13 miles out at Stony Creek with my wife. I kept my pace relatively slow, both so that I didn't drop my wife (generally not a good idea) and to recover a bit from my LT field test on Saturday.
I was pretty pleased that my skills hadn't gotten too rusty over the winter, but I didn't push the pace too hard either. My focuses were on picking good lines and looking farther down the trail. I noticed that I'm still hitting the brakes too much, something to work on next time. My legs didn't feel particularly good on the climbs. I'm not too used to climbing right now with all of the riding I've done on the trainer. I did seem to recover pretty quickly after a climb though, so that's a good sign.
The position changes I made over the winter seemed to be steps in the right direction. The changes I made were to go to a longer stem and narrower flat bars. When I experimented with lowering my handlebars last year, I kept feeling like I was going to pitch over the bars on descents. I didn't have this same feeling yesterday, which I think is attributable to the longer stem. I was also a little concerned about my bike becoming twitchy with the narrower bars and longer stem, but I didn't really notice a problem with that.
The last new thing I tried out was my RockShox Reba (Race) fork. Generally speaking, I was pretty happy with it. The only thing I noticed was that it did seem to "pack up" in a few sections. I'm going to speed up the rebound damping just a little and see if that problem goes away.
With about 3 weeks to go before my first race, The Fort Custer Stampede, I need to start spending more time on the trails. From a physical standpoint, it's unlikely I'll be sharp for the race, the race is just too early in the season. I think that's fine as long as I recognize it going in. There's no reason my technical skills can't be sharp by then though.
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