I blame the Internet!
These days, 10sec on You-Tube will show you peeps hiting massive jumps, gaps, stepdowns or whatever without what looks to be any particular technique or skill.
The natural reaction is to think, “I can do that”.
What those 2min “edits” on You-Tube don’t show is all the thousands of hrs of practice, painful crashing, and case-ing jumps to get to that point!
Probably the most important “skill” i learn’t from Tony (@ukbikeskills) is to judge when to walk away! 😆
Last month in Les Arcs there was a Gap jump that people were hitting and i REALLY wanted to do it. But i looked at it, took a proper honest look at where i was (top of a mountain, on day 2 of a week long holiday), weighed up how i was feeling that day and thought “Nah, i’ll leave that one thanks”.
Sure, i’d loved to have ridden it, and you know what, i’m 99% sure i could have done it, but on that day 99% wasn’t enough!