What does 30 women, sweet sticky single track, and hot bikes equal? The first  Women's Mountain Biking Association of COS group ride of 2011, that's what!

The first ride was held at RROS (Red Rocks Open Space). I parked in Manitou Springs and rode to RROS which was a nice little warm-up. Plus, I thought it would be fitting to end my ride at Kinfolks! I had no idea what to expect, this would be my first ride with the women of WMBA. I’ve had plenty of opportunity to interact with them; fundraisers, bike shows, even a photo shoot, but never a ride. I am now an official member so I thought it would be fitting to join them on their “season opener”. When I rolled into RROS, there were already a lot of gals getting their bikes and gear ready. The WMBA crew was pretty easy to spot with their awesome jerseys on. After signing a waiver of liability, and an essential group photo, we divided into groups to get started. Advanced, intermediate, and beginner were the choices. I think everyone was a little nervous because like myself, a lot of us chose to go in the beginner group. After a few moments of a WMBA member begging us “beginners” to move up a level to intermediate (due to numbers), I decided to go. Unfortunately, I left behind a friend that is also a new member. We were on our first group ride together. She was ok with that, as we are both newer riders on our respective bikes. Off we went. Not much varied in the trail, just the pace. We all found our way up to the Roundup Trail. The advanced group left us in the dust and we found ourselves pedaling as fast as we could. When we first started out, the clouds were just starting to disappear. I was very excited, as it had been raining, even snowing at my job all day. For a fairly new rider, RROS has a couple of tricky technical spots and one happens to be on the first ascent. It’s a switchback with a couple of wooden steps in the middle of a trail. A few of us tried to go around the steps and after that didn’t work, we just walked it. This leads me to group riding etiquette #1: Leave plenty of space between you and the rider in front of you. Just enough that in case they bail or have to stop, you are not right on top of them. This also leads into group riding etiquette #2: you are responsible for the person behind you if you should take a turn, so don't go too far.

Our fearless leader Hillary was kind enough to stop once in a while to let everyone catch up! She was also nice enough to give us a couple of “sessions” along the way. How to attack switchbacks was one, and the one that helped me the most was going downhill. “Keep your chin up, and your ass back.” Awesome. “The goal should be to fall off your bike backwards on the downhill, NOT forward”. Copy that. Now, how do I get comfortable enough not to lay on the brakes the whole way down!? After a few sessions we got to this crazy rock cliff. Not really a cliff, but it was a huge rock that had a very small single track across it, a rock wall on the right and, well, a pretty nasty sheer face down into a small gully on the left. Hmm. Time for another session. This time, it was about the “power stroke”. It was all about having your pedal at 12’o’clock and pushing it to 3’o’clock while lifting up on your handle bars…while not slamming into the rock wall while not falling down the face of the rock. We all watched in awe as Hillary attacked it with a mixture of great ease, grace and fury. She made it all the way of course, and I don’t think anyone else it the group did, oh except for the only man on the trail who sped past us with a big enough egotistical smile to make us all feel mad. The rest of the ride was a breeze, literally…the wind had picked up and was wrecking havoc while we were on the ridge. We got to the last part of the ride, choice A or choice B. A was a high ridge single track climb overlooking all of the Westside and the sunset. Choice B was a shale-ridden speedy ST down the side of the ridge. I went with B, thinking I could test out the whole “hey, let’s try not to smoke the brakes on this one”. Yeah right. I don’t think I have any brakes left now! It was an awesome way to end the ride and super fun ending to my first WMBA experience!

A big thanks goes out to all of the hard working volunteers of WMBA for leading such an awesome first ride!  Even though I was skeptical at first, I can now say that I feel confident in their abilities to be patient with riders of all abilities, as well as offer support, tips, ideas and encouragement when needed! I highly encourage any woman of any mtb ability to join WMBA of COS!

Upcoming WMBA of COS Events:

The next WMBA of COS event is a skills ride on Monday, May 16^th at 5:30pm in Red Rocks Open Space.

The next group ride is Thursday, May 26th at 6pm in Palmer Park.