maddmaxx 

Well, almost. Since I spend better than 80% of my time on the MTB, I gave up and sold the White Rabbit II. I hate to see it go, but after the initial surge, it became obvious that it was going to be a hanger queen.

This means extensive improvements to the Dormouse. This will become my primary ride (even on the occasional road trip). An all new drivetrain and wheelset to produce a pretty hot hardtail dirt bike. I will produce a photo album as it all comes together.

I've gone back to riding the trails and dirt roads..........and I feel less like I have a target on my back. My home town has just become what I like to call yuppie land, with 50mph posted 2 lane roads and 65mph SUV drivers on the cell phone. There have been lots of improvements to the trail network around here and some additional exploring has opened up a bountiful supply of dirt roads and single track worth exploring.

This means that I have destroyed the N+1 rule in my house and my wife and I are down to one bike each................oh no.

The Weak Link

Whenever someone sells a perfectly good road bike, especially a white one, Gaia kills a kitten.

badger1

OTOH, there may be an obscure natural law at work here: a "cyclist" dies, a "biker" is born!

Pamestique 

Funny I am become (finally) a mountain biker. I spend most weekends and right now, week days exploring trails however, did a road ride Monday and forgot how much I love it. Thank goodness, I still have my road bike! I don't want to give either up. Right now I am concentrating on being a better mountain biker. I also like being off the roads with all those nasty cars, but I will still get out on the road, weather and time permitting. Nothing like being able to roll along easily and quickly!

BluesDawg

You'll be back.

maddmaxx 

Given what I just spent on upgrade parts................I hope not too soon

1st two big teasers.........Mavic Crossride wheel set and a Truvativ Stylo 24/36/bash crankset.

and the usual small stuff....chain, cables (flak jacket) tires and a new much deserved saddle.

stapfam

I gave up serious Offroad 3 years ago but the Bianchi just sitting in the shed has had a few £'s spent on it -just in case it ought to go out to see If I can still ride it. Taken it easy on the downhills (Don't have the mental speed to think quick enough nowadays) but I can still climb the hills and after 15 miles- I am still hungry enough to get in a Full English at the restaurant.

BikeArkansas

My brother and I discussed road Vs MTB this afternoon. My conclusion was that I am not good enough at applying splints and bandages to ride a mountain bike.

Kurt Erlenbach

I do not understand the allure of a sport, for folks our age, that has as a significant component the thrill of falling down and landing hard. Sky diving involves falling, but the landing is soft. Not many folks our age play football. Softball involves less falling than baseball. Mountain biking, on the other hand, involves lots of falling, or at least the constant threat (or thrill) of falling. The upside is great landscape and no cars, but the downside of cracked collarbones and fractured wrists seems distinctly uninviting. So here in FL, where "mountain" biking is more like "sand hill' biking, I think I'll stick to the road, thank you very much.

palookabutt

And if you suck at MTB as I do, you spend most of each ride looking at the trail 0-50' in front of you instead of enjoying that glorious scenery. I enjoy occasional forays onto single track and I spend some time every fall testing my legs on those short, steep climbs or discovering again just how bad my bike handling skills are. But I think I'll always prefer the road.

BluesDawg

agreed.

Rick@OCRR

Well Kerlenbach,

You just have to do it, i.e. ride a mountain bike on real mountains, real trails, real singletrack, to understand the allure. Yes there are risks. Improve your technique, ride more conservatively to minimize those risks, but don't let the fear of falling keep you off the mountain bike.

On the other hand, maybe it's kind of like fixed gear riding (which I enjoy too), in that some people "get it" and like it, while others don't.

I haven't been doing as much mountain biking as I'd like lately, since I've been concentrating on road cycling goals, but I'll never give up my mountain bike and trail riding!

Rick / OCRR

pontiac_paulie

It's funny I went the other way, after 20 years of mountain biking on Vancouver Island where the riding is great, I now road bike almost exclusively.
I just don't heal quick enough.

Paul

stapfam

In 16 years of mountain biking- I sustained very few injuries. Went through a bit of clothing and helmets didn't last long but barring some serious cuts caused by falling on Flints- The only injuries I had were to muscles. Fell once on the Tandem at slow speed and felt a muscle pull that meant that I was glad of a good strong pilot to get me home and the other was on the solo when once again after a fall- I could not even walk. 5 miles gentle back home on the road and the muscle loosened up- till about 4 hours later.

And you can always tell a mountain biker- the legs are covered in scars and the plasters are from last weeks fall(s) After 3 years of road riding- I no longer have many scars.

billydonn

Nope... no mtn. biking for me....no way.

BluesDawg

billydonn

Heh....

BluesDawg

From what I've heard, riding any bike like he did would be way riskier than MTB riding.

Pamestique 

My worse injuries have been on the road. I may fall more often mountain biking but generally the surface is soft and the speed is slow (which is why I fall). The falls that occurred while on the road, high speed and a rough asphalt surface as involved. Not accounting the head injury and broken collarbone, I still have severe road rash scras on my shoulders and hip. The few cuts and scratches I get from mountain biking are nothing in comparison. And less likely to tangle with a car thank you very much!

Lord Chaos

Mountain biking is as dangerous as you want it to be. I've been mountain biking for years, and have never had a bad crash. I have no scars from bicycling.

I like mountain biking because it gets me off the road. The places are quiet. I'll admit to being somewhat unusual, in that I don't care about speed or showing off, and I even get off and walk when I feel like it or if there's something interesting to look at.

Road biking, mountain biking... I enjoy both. Just that I like the peace of riding in quieter areas.

Donegal

If it has wheels, ride the snot out of it............................... Sooner or later, you will fall off, that's life.

Last Sunday, had 1.5 hours of "whoopee" mountain bike riding, either huffing and puffing like an emphysema patient climbing or flying downhill wondering where I was going to land. Good thing about mtn biking is that the ground is softer and trees usually only glance off. It's hard to lock down on them dead center. I have put 5 stitches in my chin, 6 in my right hand and had a lot of bumps and bruises learning. One time I snuck away at lunch for a ride, flew through a pine tree and went back to work looking like I just had a fight with a cat. Mountain biking just makes you feel alive. In the wintertime, we mostly play in the woods.

Last Monday, rode an easy 50 miles on our rail to trail "Comet Trail." The worst injury of my life came from a fall on that track, relatively flat, bike lanes, no cars, how could you screw up? Got a little tired, hooked the tire in the paceline in front of me, front wheel locks at 90 degrees, you rotate around the front axle and are pile-driven into the ashphalt. Silly me, I forgot to duck my head, cracked a perfectly good Bell Ghisalo helmet and woke up 2.5 hours later. That one took 3 years to get all the way over.

Cycling is an inherently dangerous sport.(if you do it right) You have to concentrate on the good things.

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.

maddmaxx 

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"

maddmaxx 

I have yet to encounter a mad SUV coming toward me on the trail causing me to bail.....................

All of us are more comfortable in our normal environment. For me, road riding was always an appendix, something that was there that I did occasionally but didn't really need.

BluesDawg

One thing that has always struck me as funny is that most of the people I know who ride exclusively on roads/paths or offroad cite danger as the reason they don't do the other.

I am passionate about both road riding and offroad riding. I consider both basically safe activities with roughly equivalent levels of risk. On the roads there is a slight risk of minor injuries and a very low risk of major injury or death. Offroad there is a medium risk of minor injuries and a very remote risk of major injury or death. The risk factors with either discipline vary greatly with the level of skill/talent and the aggressiveness of the individual rider.
The type of riding I enjoy least is MUPs where the risk to enjoyment ratio does not balance out well for me.