switching gears

Today was my first ride on the geared mountain bike since being back in Georgia after the winter training camp in FL. My first impression is that I suck. OK, maybe not..but it's certainly hard to get used to being off the singlespeed. I felt so much faster on the singlespeed...overall, I probably wasn't, but certainly I felt faster on the climbs. Maybe it's me, but thinking about what gear I need to be in is hard. There is something to be said about just riding and not thinking. Today, I had to resist the urge to stand up and climb everything like I would have before...instead I had to focus on trying to retrain my muscles to climb seated at a higher cadence than I'm used to. The trade-off will hopefully be that I can hammer the flat sections faster than before...I'm at least feeling good on the flats (must be all that FL training!) Still, it's a bit frustrating and I'm guessing the transition to being fast on a geared bike is going to take longer than I wanted. I'm looking forward to having the Rotwild FS bike for the rooty/rocky courses.

Tomorrow will hopefully be better. We are having breakfast with my college friend (hot bluegrass star with an amazing voice) and then going to ride in the mountains where we don't have to ride around in mind-numbing circles. YAY!