Quote Originally Posted by Crankin View Post
I'm another one who made the decision to stop mountain biking. I was in love with the idea of it, and of being in the woods. I had one year, where I attempted and did fair on some hard stuff, but mountain biking is something you have to practice a lot to do well, and I hated taking time away from my road bikes. I am not naturally a risk taker and since I was also in my early fifties when I started, I decided it wasn't worth it. We sold both of our mountain bikes about 5 years ago, after we rode them on dirt roads up in Maine. Even that was harder than I thought, although I would do it again. There's very little in the way of mountian bike trails here that aren't rooty or rocky and when I started, I still hadn't found a medication I could take for my osteoporosis. That is now being reversed, but I just couldn't risk falling, which I did some, but mostly, I didn't try anything too risky.
I am not that kind of scared at all on the road.
I TOTALLY get what you are saying. I think I love the IDEA of mountain biking more than the reality of it. When it's good it's awesome and blows road biking away...but the inherent risks, especially to a noob who falls a LOT, are a bit beyond what I often think I want to deal with. I felt this to a very small degree before I broke my wrist. Before that I felt sort of invincible and was sorta proud of my massive (and frequent) bruises. But after causing major injury to myself I wonder if the risks are worth the reward. Being laid-up for 6 weeks really sucked -- and it was during the worst part of the year, weather-wise. If I found myself relegated to the sofa in the middle of Summer I think I'd be unbelievably miserable. And unbelievably miserable to be around!