Bikes & wine

Oh would you look at that, two of my favourite things.

It’s been a long week consisting of on-boarding meetings, co-worker introductions and the occasional awkward moment.

But that’s not to say it hasn’t been fun. The office is all open-concept and everyone is pretty awesome and inclusive. Plus they do beer on Friday.

So, I can get on board with that.

On Thursday night, I had my first go in the bike trails in Wanaka. A couple of peeps from work were heading over to an area called Sticky Forest and invited me to come along.

This was intimidating for two reasons, 1) I’ve never ridden Sticky Forest but had been told it was quite flowy. Flow means that there’s usually more jumps and berms. I’ve always liked tech better – which means there’s more natural obstacles, like rock gardens, rock rolls and roots.

The other reason I was feeling a little “meh” was because I knew that everyone riding was really good. I was not wrong on this front. I was with two guys and another chick from the office and they could haul. ass. I was so puffed but the time we got to the top of what otherwise would’ve been a mellow climb.

However, I was wrong about not liking flow. The flow here is significantly better than what I’ve ridden in Whistler. It’s not massive “you’re-going-to-kill-yourself” jumps, it’s more like playful launch pads and gaps. It was super fun and you could really get into it.

Plus the views didn’t hurt.

After four or five laps, I was done and my legs were waaay past done. But God, it feels great to ride again and even though I trailed behind the group a little bit, I feel like I held my own and I’m stoked to get back into the trails again try some of the them by myself.

Last night, the women of the Mons office went out for girls night where we had some wine and then joined up with the guys at another bar called Cork. It was pretty fun and didn’t get too out of hand, which is great because I still feel like passing out at 8pm.

I feel like maybe I should’ve stayed a bit later last night – when I first got to Whistler, I made a ton of friends by being out and going to the bars and clubs. And maybe it’s because I’m still a little jetlagged or tired from on-boarding week, but I just didn’t really feel like staying out. And I do worry about how that might affect making friends, but for now, I’m just trying to do what I want and not compare my Wanaka experience to Whistler too much.

• JB