An unfortunate rock/shoulder/elbow/hip/thigh incident on Mon meant that last night’s ride was a disaster – just fireroads & doubletrack

Whilst twiddling along in a world of pain I wondered if any professional mincers could advise on how to ride slowly and still enjoy it

Ta

Look at the view?

Some of my best rides have involved little riding and lots of stopping to just gaze at the view/wildlife.

I remember a few years ago on a lovely spring day sitting for nearly an hour by a little brook in the Clwyds with not a sign of human activity just taking in everything around me, probably one of my happiest hours of my life.
Yes I know that sounds a bit hippy/Zen.

Get old!

Although I don’t enjoy riding now nearly as much as I used to.

I was always a racer, every ride was ridden flat-out and as fast as possible. All I think about now when riding is “I used to ride this in X time, I used to be better at this bit!”.

I used to ride this in X time, I used to be better at this bit!

+1 🙂

Use less suspension travel…

Take a camera with you. Your nicest one. Go out for a photo session and concentrate on the landscapes, the rocks, the water, the flowers, the trees, the wildlife, whatever floats your boat. The bike’s just the transport.

A bike thread I am qualified to post in 🙂

Just enjoy being on your bike, countryside and wildlife. Perhaps find some new routes suitable for your new found mincing style.

The bike’s just the transport.

Yep, that’s the key to mincing. Take a camera, or a wild flower identification book, or an old map showing the area 100 years ago. Look at the wildlife, the trees, the buildings, the geology, just LOOK!
If you went to a museum or art gallery you wouldn’t be trying to get round it as fast as possible to beat your PB. The great outdoors is just as interesting as any museum or gallery.

Ride your usual route backwards.

Get off the beaten path and explore all the wee trails that you’ve not spotted before.
Where do they go? Can they link up?

Enjoy!

I might being going against the grain here – after an injury a couple of years ago I had to take 9 months off, by the time I got back on 10mph on fireroads was thrilling enough!

If you’re riding through pain, you really shouldn’t be riding AFAIK, it’s going to make the healing process longer and you risk damage, especially if you come off again – my last crash was caused by me ‘taking it easy’.

Take a few more days off.

Adjust duration of pub and cafe stops vs time in the saddle until you find the magic ratio.

Ah, finally, a thread I know something about.

I’ll turn this on it’s head a bit and suggest that you think about why you like to ride and in particular if/why you like to ride in a way that resulted (and in reality was always bound to result) in injury.

If the only reason you ride a bike is to challenge yourself, to take risks and to get that adrenaline hit, then you’ll never enjoy bimbling along and you might as well just accept that you are going to get injured from time to time.

If, on the other hand, you never really enjoyed the risk taking side then you might want to think about why you were doing it in the first place e.g. peer pressure, self validation etc.

hmmm

If you’re riding through pain, you really shouldn’t be riding AFAIK, it’s going to make the healing process longer and you risk damage,

He has a point. Pain is your body telling you to stop, it’s trying to heal.

First advice: Don’t read anything about cycling on STW.

If you took onboard most of the willy waving nonsense here, you will rapidly be convinced that you NEED to be hacking out 500 miles a week all year round – somewhere Northern – at an average speed of 25 mph, through rain, sleet, mud, bog and gnar mountain. Go Tiger!

That doesn’t exactly sound like a reasonable thing to do. And this is probably why we also get a lot of threads on here going – ‘what is wrong with me – I don’t enjoy MTBing anymore?’

I’m dead into mincing while going downwards – not so sure I can do it all that well on the flat, or while going uphill. It’s that silly voice in the back of my head that says ‘you probably used to ride this faster once, didn’t you?’ – the same one that ends up making me feel a bit tired of all this cycling bowlucks eventually.

Going downhill is a different thing though. I’ve hurt myself too much over the years – in remote places, always on my own – and I’ve no wish to do that again. If I find a section I’m not too comfortable with, I will quite happily mince around it.

My sis once recommended that I take my camera with me and turn the bike ride into a photo journey – to help chill things out a bit.

Alternatively, other activies are available. I find it virtualy impossible to chill out and take it easy on a bike, whereas if I go for a walk in the country – I’m aware of so much more in this beautiful world – than the beating of my own heart and the innane quest to reach the top of another hill on a bike as quickly as possible.

Going downhill is a different thing though. I’ve hurt myself too much over the years – in remote places, always on my own – and I’ve no wish to do that again. If I find a section I’m not too comfortable with, I will quite happily mince around it.

But are you happy afterwards ? This is my biggest problem. I’ve also had a few broken bones. Always on my own, usually as it is getting dark and involving a long painful walk/hobble to the car/safety. So now when I see a section that I don’t fancy I try to be sensible and just not ride it. The problem is that I then spend the rest of the ride/day beating myself up for not giving it a go.

If you took onboard most of the willy waving nonsense here, you will rapidly be convinced that you NEED to be hacking out 500 miles a week all year round – somewhere Northern – at an average speed of 25 mph, through rain, sleet, mud, bog and gnar mountain

Only if you’re tapering for an event.

Currently nursing sore ribs & can’t pull up on the bars

Whilst twiddling along in a world of pain I wondered if any professional mincers could advise on how to ride slowly and still enjoy it

Either:

1) don’t do it (never mind your poor ego, even just on health grounds riding while in “a world of pain” is likely damaging you)

2) grow up (figuratively and then years later, literally, and you’ll find a way to enjoy it)

I knew this was the right forum 🙂

Thinking of the bike as just transport is where I’m going wrong
Thanks fellas

But are you happy afterwards ?

Yep. I think I’ve managed to come to terms with mincing-out now. I think you have to look at why you are doing all this (i.e. for fun) and what the potential costs are. I accept that because I do 99% of my riding on my own, I’m unwilling to end up with a broken bone or concussion in the middle of nowhere again. Because of this I now rarely practice the gnar stuff, so I’m also out-of-practice.

Fair do’s.

If I was riding with a load of mates with loads of mobile signal in leafy Surrey each weekend it might be a different call and I might be able to built up to that sort of stuff again, because the actual ‘risk’ is much lower. But I’m not really motivated to ride with other people that much TBH.

It’s worth remembering that there are no ‘rules’ on an MTB. It should simply be about enjoying playing about in the outdoors on a bike.

An unfortunate rock/shoulder/elbow/hip/thigh incident on Mon meant that last night’s ride was a disaster – just fireroads & doubletrack

Two years ago I launched off a wee bit of rock on the trail and landed on my right side- did my rotor cuff but landed square on my hip bone. I’ve no idea how I didn’t break my pelvis- my hip and leg down to my knee was black and green for weeks.

I remembered this last night as someone was telling me last night at BMX that a 40something had just broken his hip/having it plated this weekend falling off and landing in a similar way (I guess).

So- with this in mind OP- who is going to pay your mortgage if you fall? Who is going to help you go to the toilet inbetween daytime tv shows?

Been there- wiping your arse is bloody hard with your wrong hand when you’ve snapped your dominant arm clean through just below the socket. Its just wrong.

So slow, enjoy the woods, enjoy nature and ‘speed’ whenever you want. Not your mates’s speed.

Going fast etc IS great but it can come with a crazy cost of off-the-bike time.

I’d rather ride at 50% of the speed and enjoy all of summer riding than blat hard and fast down every trail with the risk of SSP and sat in the back garden not being able to ride for weeks.

Yep. I think I’ve managed to come to terms with mincing-out now. I think you have to look at why you are doing all this (i.e. for fun) and what the potential costs are. I accept that because I do 99% of my riding on my own, I’m unwilling to end up with a broken bone or concussion in the middle of nowhere again. Because of this I now rarely practice the gnar stuff, so I’m also out-of-practice.

Well you’re ahead of me then 🙂 I’m in pretty much the same boat; prefer to ride alone, in remote places and know what a pain it can be when it goes wrong. So, I’ve reacehed the point where I can give myself permission to avoid scary sections, but still feel the need to punish myself for it afterwards 😕

The thing about losing skills is interesting. I was worried about that, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. Maybe because I had so few skills to start with. But riding tamer trails I still think about position on the bike and like to mess about. The consequence seems to be that I’m feeling more comfortable on the bike and more in control. I’ve even found myself riding stuff that I used to think was scary, but I’m not pushing myself to do so, it just doesn’t seem scary anymore. I should stress that this is still just stuff that most of you probably find easy and (since I’m not pushing myself) I may reach a plateau soon. But it’s all good fun.

Something that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned yet: BIN STRAVA.

If, after every ride, you have to upload your stats and check how you got on (compared with your previous efforts and the rest of the world) on every segment, then you are obviously not just out to enjoy the ride.

Now, if I could just take my own advice 😳

[video]http://youtu.be/vM9hGYpq0d0[/video]

Roverpig speaks the truth. I ditched Strava and started to enjoy the riding much more. Was hard at first when I was riding well as I thought some quantification would be nice but a couple of years down the line if I feel I am riding well, that is reward enough in itself.

1. get an action camera to help motivate you

.. the time off and watching the summer roll by while recovering from injuries due to moviemaker inspired lunacy will make you appreciate all your rides, even slowly on fireroads much more 🙂

or

2. focus on flow, keeps me entertained and out of trouble…..mostly.

and

+1 on just enjoying/exploring the great outdoors and getting a bit lost etc.

On a slight tangent jump, I occasionally like to go running around the areas that I ride. Naturally I can’t cover nearly as much ground so I kind of take in more of my immediate environment. I see more of the detail and always spot things (near and far) that I’ve not seen before.

I also explore all those bits of singletrack (and lots of other “ooh, what could be hidden away past that bit?”) that I don’t on the bike. Sometimes I find really cool stuff, eg last night I went for a run over Pitch/Holmbury and found 4 trails I’ve not explored before.

Sometimes carrying an injury or just looking at something from a different angle is all you need to enjoy things from a different – usually slower – perspective.