Mountain Biking - Amelia Earhart Park - Hialeah

Mountain biking attempt number two. If you remember from my last posting on the subject, I was just starting out on the intermediate trail when my bike suffered a catastrophic failure. With some glue, bolts and eight inches of galvanized water pipe, I made a very ill advised repair. Before I plunk down some serious cash for this sport I thought I would see if I even care for it. Ok, let's be honest. I want to see if I can even survive the bunny hills. For today's adventure a new venue. Amelia Earhart Park in Hialeah.

I may be a total novice but my partner for the day is not. Nor, does it seem, the 30-40 riders all getting ready for an early start to the day when we arrived. My friend was describing how the trail starts off easy and gets progressively more difficult when we were informed by another rider the entire course has been reversed. Better to test my sketchy repair work close to the car I'm thinking.

We plunge right in on the beginner trail. Not bad. A little rough. Five minutes later we are dodging trees, climbing hills, and taking hair pin turns in the sand. Hey, this is the intermediate trail. Did I miss the sign? Not much of a warmup I'm thinking.  It was about all I could do to keep up when I was confronted with a ten foot climb. I could not switch gears fast enough and stopped dead as my front wheel cleared the top. With a few encouraging words and suddenly locating some inner strength I was up and over again and again hill after hill. Tremendously exciting and dangerous enough to command my full attention.

Dog tired and almost to the end

We rounded a corner and I realized I was playing follow the leader right onto the Advanced Course. "Are you serious ?!?!" I called out.
The answer was I was doing just fine. Maybe I was not making clear I was already percentage points past my limit. I did not clear the first or second hill but another burst of determination kicked in and I was up and over the third. The way down was practically vertical from my point of view. At one moment I was certain the back wheel was going over my head. A little too much for day one. I was forced to bypass the worst of it while my riding partner zipped around the course like a bumble bee.

There are plenty of twists and turns and very challenging terrain on the advanced course that I will tackle next time. I promise. For right now, I was happy to walk away. My bike is about on its last pedal and I will need to upgrade to something that can run this course. Upgrading me is another matter but I am determined conquer the advanced course at Amelia.