Last weekend 11th and 12th May 2013 the weather was gorgeous, a beautiful autumn days with sun and no wind. On the Saturday morning, I wheeled my bike out of the garage, and had a quick ride up and down our drive-way. I didn't fall off but my steering wasn't the greatest.

I then ventured out to the cul-de-sac, putting on my brand new helmet for the first time. I rode a couple of times around the street, trying to figure out the gears, I wasn't sure what they were meant to do, and when you were supposed to change them. My husband said to just leave them in the middle as that was all you needed if you were biking on flat ground.

I decided to have an attempt at the very small hill down from our place, riding down it was fine, but coming back up the street was virtually impossible. I had to get off and walk. I had played with the gears and had shifted them up, instead of down and it made it extremely difficult to push the pedals.

I came inside and did a bit of research on the internet to try and figure out how the gears actually worked. In a nutshell if you are going up-hill put the gears into low, if riding on flat ground leave them in the middle, and if going down-hill put them up to high!!

In the afternoon we decided we would actually give one of the bike trails a go. One of my co-workers had told me the best place to start which was from McDonald's in Richmond, out to the under-pass at Three Brothers Corner which was about a 4 km ride. Not very far I know but it was a good first attempt.

 The trail was completely flat and we ended up going a bit further than the underpass and were biking alongside Waimea Estates vineyard which was very pretty. We decided to turn back then, but you can actually ride through the vineyard and end up at Brightwater. That will be an adventure for another day. My legs did hurt a bit when I was biking, but as soon as I stopped they were fine and didn't hurt the next day.