Off road riding without injury

billyballs

Just enjoy the ride and know your limits. But always wear clean underpants- old school . you never know!

YeehaaMcgee

andy_welch wrote:

I try to avoid making statements such as:

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Quit worrying about it and just live your life.

without at least adding "in my opinion it's better to" or something.

You're having a go at me for telling you to quit worrying and just live your life?
Wow.
Obvious troll is obvious, eh? :roll:

cooldad

You forgot to add "IMHO"

cloudynights

im self employed, so if i break a collar bone or break a arm i cant go to work, and i cant pay the bills, so i bear this in mind before flying downhill and use a little bit of my 44 years experience

Anonymous

The expense being self employed is a concern, as is crashing when no one is around having had the benefit of someone about after a smash. Though confidence has increased a lot since getting a bigger and blingy skills compensator , and just generally since the last smash for some reason (maybe having no memory of it helps).

Though I used to enjoy a solo exploratory ride a lot and still do (more so as I've got free time during the week now). Riding with mates or just some dodgy blokes you met off a forum (basically everyone I ride with ), is loads of fun, sociable experience and I learn a lot, both in techniques and new trails. And yeah they hopefully won't leave me to the wolves.

cooldad

Being called dodgy is actually the best thing that's happened to me today. Won't leave you to the wolves, but bears - you're on your own.

Thewaylander

Thing is I've seen people crash at 5 MPH and because they hit a rock with out pads they absolutely ruined there knee.

So i say no its not possible to avoid all risk off road on a bike the terrain can be treacherous and slippy with out you even realizing it, there is always going to be an element of risk and MTBing has this more than most sports by the nature of the terrain ridden, it's often harsh, rocky and generally unforgiving in case of a small accident if you catch it in just the wrong way.

You can of course minimize this by riding with in your skill zone, and sticking to the tamest things you can find thats fine, but it will still fairly likely come bite you on the ass one day and you will slide and in your way will be a big a@~ tree that just doesn't move an inch.

This is of course my opinion but i feel there is no getting away from there being a certain element of risk in any outdoor sport, particularly one where rough ground is being ridden at almost any level.

tenfoot

Thewaylander wrote:

Thing is I've seen people crash at 5 MPH and because they hit a rock with out pads they absolutely ruined there knee.

This usually happens to me. Once I complete a technical section, usually stop to wait for my companions and sometimes, due to lack of concentration, end up not clipping out of my pedals properly and going over.

Did it last week at Afan, and ended up with a bruise 3/4 the length of my shin, and a couple of weeks before that, when I committed the ultimate in bad manners and fell off my brother's bike :oops:

cooldad

tenfoot wrote:

a couple of weeks before that, I committed the ultimate in bad manners and fell off my brother's wife :oops:

FTFY