@ bluesdawg. I was - in theory, being careful, in that I never hammer when alone. My avg. spd is a good mph slower then when chasing buddies. Just bad luck to not see a stump buried under the leaves on a recently added trail section. Happens.
The thing about mt. biking is it's fun. Especially this time of year on Long Island when it's just too cold at 20 deg. to motivate for a solo road ride. I find road riding to be as much fun on a Sept Sunday morning when I'm moving at a good clip with a bunch of buddies who ride my tempo and there's nothing as fun as a rotating paceline at 20mph. Or a rail-trail ride someplace taking me someplace I've never been before, or pulling into the driveway on a July evening after a 25 mile bike commute home, or riding Acadia on my touring bike with those new cross tires, or....... well pretty much everything related to cycling.
Yes, I get banged up mt. biking, but I also have fun when I might otherwise be really grumpy 'cause I skipped a ride because I'm scared of falling. Part of the problem is I recently lost a friend, a 91 year old local cyclist who I really looked up to in terms of how he lived his later years, still mt. biking and taking the hits and riding hard. I hope to take it to that age, though I suspect that as Alzheimers runs in the family my rides will become more interesting as I won't have any clue where I am. And I'll be scraping my knee's up. So be it.