Robert Winder

I went out with the boys from Expert Tree Service Youth Development team last night around the trails of Oakland Hills. Ruth & Joseph took me to show me off to the other kids.

I spent a good hour having my legs ripped off on my old mountain bike, they all had a good chuckle at the state of my Schwinn… hey, its ok that the chain is rusty and the shifting doesn’t work. I asked if there were any steep hills - "nope, just a couple of rollers on the way back" - I should’ve known better and at the bottom of the neverending steeeeep climb I realised that I just wasn’t going to make it. I admitted to the group that my shifting wasn’t working and Austin, young ride leader, came to the rescue and used all his MTB experience to get me shifting again. He still ripped my legs off, but at least I didn’t have to walk.

I nearly rode over Joseph twice, once downhill when he decided to break hard, and once when he lost control of the bike, but ended up jumping off and running without going down at all - what a star. Ruth sat there, pedalling with class and style - she is going to show me up. Excellent.

We all had great fun and I really appreciate that Brian - Expert Tree Service - has pulled together a fun environment for the kids to ride in.