Did you know what biking would do for you before you started doing it? What are the odds it’s the only thing in the world that would do that for you?
Good question, but oddly (for this place anyway) I started riding offroad in my early teens, some 16 years ago. And oddly enough when I first started, it wasn’t a massive thing for me, mainly used my bike as transport more than for recreation. It’s been since uni I’ve got more and more into riding, and the love has grown and grown.
Like you I’ve also been through the motorbikes phase, and though I still love them now, even with all the money in the world you can’t enjoy riding motorbikes in such a free and un-policed way as you can mountain bikes. You could lose your license on a bike costing a few hundred quid in no time, it doesn’t take big bucks to get that kind of performance, and this is part of why its lost it’s appeal to me. And then if I had enough money to do trackday after trackday, well. It would be fun, but I’d be on my own. Rather ride my mountain bike with my mates, much more social and I get 95% of the buzz from it too at least.
I also used to do a lot of DJing, and was massively into music. Now there’s a solitary hobby if ever there was one! For all your passion and efforts, unless you’re right at the top of the tree, nobody else ever really appreciates it, and it’s that that kind’ve killed it for me.
And there have been other hobbies too, many in fact. But none give me the combination of primeval speed junky thrills, the social mix, and the endorphins from exercise that mountain biking does. I’ve met more friends through cycling than anything else, by some margin, and almost everytime I go on a group ride I meet new people and get chatting.
Maybe there are other things out there that might give me a similar balance, but I doubt it somewhat. Especially now as I’m in my 30’s, as seems to be the way, a load of mates that gave it up for drink/drugs/women in their teens are all starting to get back into it now too! 😀