A week of bareback trail rides...

Now, being only twenty, I had assumed going out bareback while trying to find a properly fitting saddle wouldn't be an issue. I used to ride bareback all the time. I took lessons on huge WB's bareback for crying out loud! And I used to take Lucy out bareback all the time.

But have you ever, perchance riden a ten mile ride up and down hills bareback? Well, in a bareback pad anyway. I rode bareback on Wednesday and even though we only went 3 miles Lucy still sweated and my jeans were drenched and hairy and I was a little grossed out! And belive me, its takes a LOT to gross me out! HA! Aperently once your over 18 things like going totaly bareback just don't suit anymore.

We totally had fun on our Wednesday ride, since it was short and the weather was lovely. I think Lucy was glad not to be going out for a really long ride. I did notice while riding how far back her shoulder comes, I think her shoulder might have a lot of motion to it because of that little bit of TWH in her.

SUNDAY

Yes! The day of reckoning! Can I survive a long bareback ride without hurting me or Lucy? Well I succeeded in one part. Lucy did fine! I however recked me knee. But I will get to that in a bit.

I decided to ride from home, we will be doing this when we ride in Big Basin from now on, she is in good enough shape and the hills are good for her. I did walk her down a lot of my road since she didn't want to leave home.

She had a really good pace going up Gazos. We went down the Gazos trail after Sandy point. We went about two miles out. The last mile or less I got off and ran. I was highly impressed with myself, I usually die running that far. Then I got on, we turned around and trotted back up where I had just run down. I had been a wee bit concerned that I might end up bouncing too much if I trotted for long periods of time. But my abdomins prevailed and absorbed all the bounce. Then burned like hell later! Oh well, Lucy's back wasn't sore so all was fine.

But the bad and good part was that I found out what hurts my knee when riding. It turns out it has nothing to do with going down hill. It has to do with the angle of my hips and knee. Because my legs were pushed wider by Lucy's fairly wide back ( I guess, but Lucy's back isn't really wide) my knee hurt the whole time from the angle.

So now I am not sure if I need a saddle with a wider twist or a narrow twist. I had the knee problem in both my Crosby (sort of a medium twist) and my Wintec which has a very similar twist.

I guess I will have to just try several different saddles out! Great, so now I have another condition on what saddle I get!!!

But now it looks like I wont' be doing Fireworks. Even though I am going to try the stonewall and Marciante endurance saddles, I won't be able to buy anything until I get paid, which might be a while. I also wont' have the money for the entry fee either. So Shine and Shine only might be our first event. We will see.

Lucy did really well though. Once we got off our own mountain she seemed happy to be out on the ride. We only went about 10 miles and I think she could easily handle longer conditioning rides at this point. But I need to stick to 10 miles when trotting her very much.