Saturday, June 4, 2011

New Skills

Thursday morning started out with attempting to do wheelies in the grass. It was fun, I am not very good at doing wheelies but I got up a couple of times and fell shortly after that. When the boys arrived we headed out for a relay ride. After we got warmed up we started the relays, it was a fun way to do interval training. Then we rode around the Black Forest on some cool trails. We headed to the bike park again and played on the obstacles for a while. I have learned how to do so much new stuff this trip. I learned how to ride over logs, teeter-totters and how to jump off of drops. It would have been nice to know how to do this stuff before the Offenburg World Cup but at least I know how to do it now. I still have a lot to learn but hopefully some of my new skills will come in handy on my ride tomorrow. The bike park is fun and by the end of our time there we were pushing our skill levels. Shortly before we left and on our way out we had a couple of crashes. I saw Wesley go off a drop almost had it and her bike jut toppled over her; she got up a little shaken and beaten up and rode down the hill. At the bottom of the hill Alisha and I both fell in the same spot, I rolled out of it but she scraped her knee up. It was hard to stop there with all of the people standing in the way. We took a break ate lunch and then headed out for a second ride in the afternoon. It was a nice easy ride into Freiburg on the bike path and then we turned around. It is crazy here you have watch out for cars on the bike path because they drive on it. They have little roads everywhere; you can just ride up the mountain on the road and then find a super sweet down hill on the way down.

Yesterday we went up a mountain road for about an hour and then found a hut and a field. The hut was closed this time of year but I bet it is packed in the summer. We rode up the field a little ways and found a really cool down hill. My hands started to cramp towards the bottom. The very bottom of the trail had crazy tight switchbacks. We came back changed and headed in to Freiberg. We walked around the city for a while. It was absolutely packed in there because it is a holiday weekend. We went in this really big old church. It was really big and had some cool paintings in it. Out side of the Church was a crape stand. We stopped and got some delicious crapes! We walked back to our meeting spot and then we left some of the girls in Freiberg to get their haircut and take the train back. They said it was a unique experience getting their haircut in a foreign country.

Today we went for a little pre-race ride. Rode some on the single track and then did some short efforts on the road. We rode to the boys house and practiced wheel changes. After that we changed out of our bike clothes we went to the Waffle house and got delicious waffles. Mine had applesauce on it and it was delicious. Most of the others got wild berries and ice cream, it looked really good and I might have to try it tomorrow if we go back. I chopped some potatoes with flimsy knives, seems like my designated job.