My Other Christmas Present January 15, 2011

About a week before Christmas, we received two large boxes in the mail. One contained my new Santa Cruz Superlight frame (as well as Scotty’s new Bullit frame), while the other contained the parts kit to build it up. A week or so later (turns out babies can be quite time and energy-consuming), the bike was built up, and on the second day of the new year, I headed out to Forrester Park/Bethunes Gully (location of the National XC Champs this year) for my first mountainbike ride since September.

It was great being able to ride without worrying about my heartrate. While pregnant, the guidelines were to keep your HR below 140 when exercising, so to not affect bubs too much. I have to admit I quite often ended up going up to 150-160 bpm though – I figured since my max HR was a bit higher than “normal”, then I’d be OK. It was also good not to worry about crashing too much, and I was riding with a bit more aggression and less hesitation. Finally, it was good to get away from Cadence for a little while. Being a full-time mum is great (well, mostly), but having a break every now and again to do something for myself is bliss.

Since that first ride, I’ve managed to head out for another three. I checked out the tracks out at Wakari Creek for my second ride, and rode out at Forrester/Bethunes again for my third and fourth. My legs and butt were quite sore after the first ride but after the others, they were a lot better. Guess it doesn’t take too long to get used to the bike again.

The bike itself is fantastic. A very similar setup to my old Superlight except the forks have 120 instead of 100mm travel, and the new bike is specced a bit higher so the whole bike is lighter (around 25 lbs instead of 28), although I’m negating it with the extra weight I’m now carrying!

So.. what are my goals? Good question. To get out on the bike more eventually would be nice, but that largely depends on how Cadence goes. By the end of the year, I’d like to get back down to my pre-pregnancy weight (I’ve got 8kg to lose), and to maybe do a 3 or 6 hour solo MTB race. At the moment though, I’m just taking one day at a time as Cadence’s behaviour can be as unpredictable as the Wellington weather. In reality, I’ve got years to ride my bikes, but Cadence is only a baby once so I may as well enjoy this time while it lasts.