One piece of advice, don't get discouraged if mt biking sucks on your first few outings. The first time I went mt biking was on technical single track (lots of roots, logs, mud) I was falling off my bike every 15 ft. or so and I thought I was going to die from exhaustion within 15 min. After 3 months of biking I can go 4 hours now before I'm exhausted. I'm still falling off the bike though...