Glad I chickened out!

Reading Tracey's profile makes me feel somewhat inferior. At best I am an infrequent commuting cyclist, mainly road based in an attempt to get to work. It clashes with the school run, so tends to be an easy-out when things are manic. And then there is the leisure cycling. That's much more fun. Plenty of opportunity to get muddy, and so much more flexible - no corporate constraints.
Anyway, the phone call came from my partners friend. 'Do you fancy a cycling weekend?'. It was an invitation to us both, in the Afan Forest, and I started to get excited. Not only would I be an honourary lad for the weekend again (always fun), but I'd be in the company of some seriously good cyclists who didn't take things too seriously. What more could a girl wish for? I started to clear the diary, only to find out it was the one and only weekend in the whole year, that I had an unmoveable fixture. So, whilst I relaxed in a spa in Malta (see, I told you it was unmoveable), my other-half went off on his first ever mountain biking weekend. I am soooooo glad I didn't go.
I like paths, I really do. I like smooth tarmac, I like well worn country tracks, and I love the semi-gravelly routes forged by Sustrans (the National Cycle Network). My bike too loves those surfaces. Just enough grip on the tyres to hold my own, but plenty of slick to reach silly speeds when you're on the flat and are feeling feisty, or staring down a nice long traffic free road from the top hill, and knowing that the wind is behind you, and your average speed for the whole day is about to shoot through the roof!
Anyway, not only would my bike not have made the Afan Forest, neither would I it seems. I hear tales of saddles being lowered as far as possible for manic downhill descents, front shock-absorbers being tested to the max, and the biggest, fattest, knobbliest tyres you've ever seen on bikes with disc brakes. Poor Haggis would have been the runt of the litter. The tales of woe from the riders were equally shocking, areas of unnatural soreness were found in an area outstanding natural beauty. I however survived the off-roading weekend with nothing more than well massaged shoulders, and a nice tan!