Originally Posted by Mtracer

I'm 64 and about 2 months ago I went down hard while mountain biking. Not in the rock garden I just went through (fortunately) but making a turn in soft sand at the bottom. Not moving fast, but slammed down hard. I later learned the term is "$h*t whipped". Cracked ribs mostly. Had I went down on the rocks, I can only guess, but probably broken limbs and ribs.
Ribs kept me off the bike for 6 weeks or so. Probably could have got going earlier. The accident completely put a stop to my strength training.
So, I gave this a thought and decided, I'm not going to ride single track anymore. Where I went down was not technical and was a spot I had ridden through dozens of times before. I don't feel I can right this off as I'll do better next time. I'm much more of a roadie, and really won't miss MTB. I'll ride easy flat trails and such but I decided that the risk was no longer worth the reward. If I get injured, I simply lose out on too many other things in my life.
As for the risks of road riding, they're there of course. But there's not nearly the chance of falling that there is on an MTB. Usually it's nothing much, but it's simply much more likely I'll go down.
There are risks in just about anything we do. So, avoiding all risk is not realistic. But in my case, I've decided I'm no longer taking the risk with my MTB on even moderately technical single track.