Originally Posted by
Tom Bombadil
So MM and Pamestique, what kinds of trails are you riding? Serious up & down with roots & rocks & obstacles trails? Some up & down but cleared trails through woods? Or varying terrain, fairly well established dirt trails?
I don't mind a fairly level packed dirt trail, I like the isolation of riding those. But I'm not big on technical mountain biking, with serious hills to climb and obstacles to negotiate.
As to giving up road riding, that would be difficult for me to do given as how I've never taken it up. I've put in a few miles now and then, and there's a short cut between two rail trails where I ride a road for about 1.5 miles, but I don't enjoy it at all. I'm not used to cars buzzing past within a few feet at 50+ mph. In part due to my inability to hold a straight line well, my right arm takes it upon itself to twitch now & then, sending me about 2' to one side or the other. That's not a good thing on a road, not so much a problem on a rural rail trail.
This is more my style of riding. Some days it's relatively flat rail trail with the occasional forray off onto a bit of single track. Somedays, it's bad farm or fire roads. I've posted pics of the trails to my house on my own personal mountain but frankly, I often end up walking the bike through the worst of the uphills.
At the age of 63 you will find no magazine covers of me dropping off a 5ft cliff (or for that matter hopping over much more than a curb) The pics below (from the pics of your ride thread are about as brave as I get, and then I am turtle slow and conservative. Most falls land on soft stuff. My serious falls all came on road bikes.
Edit: For me, mountain biking is more negotiating terrain to get someplace interesting than it is "attacking" terrain for the fun of it. Many of the same skill sets must be learned however just to be able to "get there"