I have a nice route I ride very regularly- probably once a week for the last few years. There are only a couple of difficult bits but the last three times I have ridden it, I have cocked up one of these. The first occasion, I came off on loose gritstone rocks and chopped up my left knee. The next attempt I just about kept it together but I was all over the place, and today I came off and chopped up my right knee. How can something I am so familiar with suddenly have become so hard, and any advice on getting my mojo back please?

New bike 😆

Work out why you fall off

If it’s something you can identify and can change then its less worrying. That’s why lots of people recommend skills courses in these situations

And then buy a new bike

It’s ALWAYS the bike (or the tyres or the shock or the fork or the stem or the pedals or the bars).
Or you’ve turned into a spaz.

go faster

Too dry?

knee pads 🙂

Or you’ve turned into a spaz.

This. I spazmodically came off on a descent I’d done lots of times before, except this time there were no pine needles for grip, the top had been frozen then thawed out to reveal slippery clay underneath.

OTB, & I thought….What tyres for a wheelchair. 😥

There was a small section on my local loop like that. I just couldn’t ride it even though it wasn’t that hard. Once I even went up there and ride it several times on my downhill bike just to get over the mental block. Next time on my cross county bike I bottled it again. We ended up moving (not due to that section) so I’ve still not ridden it on a cross country bike.

Thanks- so I need knee pads, at least two new bikes, and a new house…….

I think I have lost my bottle with this bit and am trying to pick my way down slowly then, because I don’t have momentum, I’m getting bounced around and going off line. Need to grow a pair and give it a bit more speed I think, but maybe I will buy some knee pads first.

And buy a GoPro so we can all witness the next time you cock it up 😀

Don’t worry, I fell off at the exit of a bombhole (at just over walking pace) yesterday and now have a stiff shoulder, neck and scuffed elbow. I’ve ridden it hundreds of times and I’ve no idea what I did, apart from riding like “a spaz”.

Can we not use the word spaz – we would not use the n word so lets not use this offensive world for folk with disabilities

I think it changes when its dry and dusty and these are the hardest conditions to ride in as we get the least amount of practice

Take up road cycling, come home clean, intact and completely beasted and get properly fit.

globalti – Member

Take up road cycling, come home clean, intact and completely beasted and get properly fit.

Plus, you don’t have to wave all friendly like at other cyclists.

Unless you get squeezed into the curb by one of the many arses on four wheels.

I’ll take nettle rash over that any day. Possibly even brambles too.

@globalti- I managed to come off the roadie the other day too. No need to wonder why- straightforward utter stupidity

@willard- nettles and brambles I don’t mind. Bare flesh on gritstone hurts