Do you mountain bike alone?

[pinkbikes]

Yep - I ride alone on the road and the trails. I like my own company and am happy to ride alone. I find I probably ride harder when I do than when I ride with friends since I don't spend so much time chatting! And since I am not noted for my hill climbing talents, I enjoy going out for long hill climbs by myself so I am not pressured to ride to somebody else's rhythm or feel I'm holding anybody up. And I feel safer doing a long firetrail hill climb rather than hitting up single track by myself (which is not say I don't do that now and again too).

I don't think I've ever really felt afraid due to "creepies" although there are always plenty of idiots who will heckle given a chance! I sometimes ride on the road at night - DH and I often tag team if we go to friends or family for dinner. He will ride there and I will ride home. And I have also been known to ride in the forest by myself at night. That is just a little spooky sometimes but always so beautifully peaceful. When I ride dirt at night alone I am pretty much confined to trails I am 100% confident with. Our local forest is only about a mile away on bikeway.

I have really fantastic lights (Ay-Ups on the front and helmet, and RoadID Supernova blinky on the rear) and I always carry a toolkit, spares, pump, CO2, a compact first aid kit and foil blanket, a compass, whistle, snack, pen and paper, RoadID and my mobile phone. Oh - and I have my Garmin which some enterprising local has produced trail maps for, so I can always work out where I am. And DH usually knows where I'm going.

We don't have too much in the way of wildlife I would be afraid of, although DH got bitten by a spider one night and we do get ticks now and again. The closest call I had was almost colliding with an owl one night. I wasn't sure what was sitting on the trail until I got quite close, and when it took off it nearly flew straight through me and the bike! Not sure who got the bigger fright.

Oh - and we have toads. Big slimey cane toads! On summer nights when the weather has been damp there are hundreds and thousands of the blighters on the trails. You can ride right up to them and just about over the top of them before the deign to get out of the way. I am quite terrified I will run over one by accident, slip on it and fall, coming face to face with the horrid gnarly thing! Actually, a couple of times I have been riding along and one has jumped as I rode toward it and has collided with my shin and then been flung through the air as I kept pedalling. YUUUUUUUCCKKKKK!!!!

[jessmarimba]

I'm going to revive this one, since it's been interesting reading today.

I almost always ride alone. And by almost always, I mean I've ridden with another person maybe 3 times, ever (but the last time I taught my sister how to mountain bike!). I'm more afraid of getting lost than getting hurt since I sometimes ride trails in places I've never been with maps that tend to suck, but I'll admit to walking some VERY easy trail sections in Telluride simply because there was a 75-foot drop beside the trail and no phone service. And no one knew or cared where I was.

I will also admit that after reading this thread and thinking about it, I'm probably holding myself back by riding alone because I'm not with someone who has expectations to live up to (or not) and I will walk things that I might try under pressure.

On the other hand, I absolutely HATE running by myself. Kind of weird.

[surgtech1956]

I ride alone most of the time, but its on a well used walking and riding trail - unfortunately its only 4 miles long, but its a mile from my house. I also carry 'mace' with me.

[Aggie_Ama]

Rattlesnakes, rocky courses, poor cell phone coverage and horrible maps keep me from riding alone. Now sometimes I will go on without DH while he rides a technical section and the funny thing is I ride better. But I only ride better without DH, I ride great with some of the women I ride with. Truly bizarre.

My biggest fears are finally seeing a rattlesnake, then crashing. Since I was a child at least once a month I dream I am in a house (or elsewhere) surrounded by rattlers. For many years I was convinced I would die from meeting one but now I know the number of deaths each year is relatively low. Permanent disfigurement at the bite site is what I worry about, I saw someone who hard a gnarled hand from a rattler bite. Funny thing is I have seen more snakes (cottonmouths and bull snakes mostly) running than riding but I still like to run alone.

[Aggie_Ama]

I went alone this morning and it was great! It was a very busy trail, not super technical and there were a lot of riders but oddly I was alone on almost every part of the 13 miles of single track. It was like I was just behind or just ahead of all the other riders, nice and relaxing. No snakes just one small whitetail doe, a squirrel and some dogs. It is an off leash park, the dogs were particularly bratty today. If you are going to let your dog off leash make sure it isn't going to chase hikers and cyclists and that it will listen to you! Otherwise it was a very good ride, no wrecks and a lot of fun. I will go alone to this trail again. I still prefer on more technical ones to use the buddy system.

[tzvia]

My biggest fears are finally seeing a rattlesnake, then crashing...

That actually happened to me about 10 years ago! It was my most frightening moment MTBing alone. I was going up a long fire road climb in the summer heat, just zoned out. It was after an el-nino winter so it was really rutted except for the right side which was on the high side of the hillside, with a lot of dried foot tall grass. Just the right place for a rattler to doze off, but I was not thinking of that. I was really not thinking about anything except the smoothest part of the trail and the heat.

Next thing I knew, was this motion and scraping sound on my right about next to my front tire. Too late to do anything except pedal faster. Time then took a real dive. I had plenty of time to think about everything I was doing. Speed up, look back. What's that? Big mouth. BIG MOUTH gonna get caught in my rear spokes! Two sails. Not teeth. They look like skin sails. Missed me missed the bike pedal faster oh crap in a rut- down I go. Maybe a few seconds but forever. I sat up and realized that the rattler was a few feet behind my bike, which was between me and it. It was rattling away very loud. Now for the weird part. It then decided that it did not like being hemmed in on the high side, so it crossed the trail just behind my bike, maybe 10 feet from me as I sat there. The whole time it was rattling and turning it's head towards me. Very pissed off snake. I got a real good look at it- it was around 6~7 feet long- and very big in the middle. It curled up under a bush on the edge of low side and kept rattling. I got up and could not believe my luck, the rattler must have been spooked by me and was not in a good position to strike. Lucky me.

I had to wait for a while, about 10 minutes, hoping it would stop rattling and go away as the trail is used by horse riders and mtb'ers and I just didn't want to leave a pissed snake on the side of the road. Finally it stopped, and I thought it was ok so took one step towards my bike but it began rattling again! I was about 30 ft away by then, it was still pissed! I warned a few mtb'ers who came by and it rattled away as they passed. 20 more minutes later I finally left.