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Been mountain biking seriously now for about 3 years and started getting into racing and now doing the annual Ard rocks races and hopefully the new Ard Moors
Only really took it up when I quit smoking (100 a day!) and wanted to fitter again and its helped massively and mentally
And just turned 48 and still notching up plenty of KOM's on my Spesh Enduro beating kids half my age so I've got no intention of calming down unless injury prevails
If I was any calmer I'd be asleep.
Never really been into techy stuff.
I like it if it's on the way somewhere nice and enjoy the the odd trail centre blast, but don't feel the need to relentlessly progress.
I found a skills course really useful and it broke some bad habits, but it made me more confident on the type of stuff I already rode, not desperate to seek out harder stuff.
I know my limits, red's are fine, blacks scare me.
47 now and as fit and as light as I have ever been, and with the most capable bike that I've ever owned. However after a nasty spill last year when I think I broke my wrist (didn't get it checked, still aches now 9 month on) I have become noticeably slower on anything technical. It is as if some sort of subconscious switch has been flipped.
Apologies to anyone stuck behind me.
52 next week and I'm toying with this idea of slowing down after a big off at Antur yesterday!
Sore neck and slight numbness in my head today.
Doc says i'll be fine.
Glad i had a FF helmet on,need a new one after yesterday,I'll also be wearing a brace from now on as well.
Will it slow me down,probably not!.
Won't be doing strava there anymore though.
Doing my 1st DH race on Sunday as well,can't wait!.
STR - Based on my speed relative to the rest of our group, I already have 😳
I also own a gravel bike...
41 here. Started MTBing in around '87 or '88. I definitely hit a point aged circa 17/18 where I realised that going as fast as possible down hills was more dangerous than I wanted and that it did actually make sense to ease off a bit to reduce the likelihood and size of crashes. Raleigh Maverick and Peugeot Ranger, nothing too challenging.
19-24 I didn't ride that much. Since then I have ridden skateparks on a BMX, ridden fixed on track and road, started riding road bikes, and got back into MTB. I'm probably quicker downhill than ever, but a full sus with XT disc brakes makes that a lot safer than doing it on a crappy late 80s rigid with cantilevers. Still interested in pushing limits (speed on favourite loops, how technical descents I can deal with, how steep and muddy a hill I can get up without letting my foot touch the ground) but not looking to learn how to jump medium let alone big, or become a downhill adrenaline hunter.
44 now and still trying to get faster. I've had a couple of OTB's and I've come to realise that I'm taking longer to heal than when I was a young'un. I've also developed what I call the fear.
46 today 😀 A few nasty offs in the last 12 months have driven home the point that I don't heal that fast any more, and I just want to enjoy getting out and riding even if it means walking the occasional tricky bit. Every time I stack properly it means time off the bike.
I'm starting to really embrace 'The Fear', and trying to get smoother rather than just flinging myself at stuff and hoping for the best.
Well I'm 35 and looking at buying a (first) trials bike because I've just discovered really enjoy bunny hopping, wheelieing, endo turning and generally dicking about. I'm taking the typical facebook-type quotation "you don't stop playing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop playing" to heart.
As regards gnar, the two guys that I ride with most frequently are 7 and 10 years younger than me and I'm much, more content flinging myself and my bike down mountains at speed than they are (although admittedly one of them is much, much faster uphill than me).
STR - Based on my speed relative to the rest of our group, I already have
Balls, you're as fast as any of us
50+ years old , and spent last Sunday-a.m. digging ramps ( & most winter week-ends) and p.m. riding.
Shoulders hurt like hell now, but summer should mean more riding as ground hardens up, so not giving up any time soon
Samunkim - Did we bump into you and have a chat in the middle of Brox Woods the other weekend? Me on an orange Kona and my pal on a black Canyon?
Just turned 40, I reckon I've been progressing year on year, certainly for the last few. This year is a bit slow at getting started, been on autopilot a bit, going through the motions on the local trails. Need to get out to the lakes and scare myself again. Still got plenty of aspirations to ride some gnarly trails.
I got the CX bug year before last, towards the end of last year was fading a little, still commute on it offroad and do some extended rides in/home, but I tired of fixing punctures. Yes I could ride that not very gnarly downhill but there's a reasonable chance I'll get a flat so I'll pootle down here instead. Seem to remember one long ride to work, all the up and along was done offroad but I chose tarmac routes down the hills 🙄
46 today
Happy b-day. 🙂
I never really decided, I just don't feel the urge to "go big".
A few years ago(40 now), if one of my mates did a stupid big gap, jump or drop, I'd have to step up and do it. I still ride jumps and drops, but when mates start doing 30 foot road gaps, I just sit back and take some pictures.
Happy b-day.
Many thanks! Got a nice sunny non-gnarr ride in earlier - just the kind of birthday I like.
46 this year and gerring faster and doing more techy downhill. Accept the fact you will get hurt again and you really speed up. The Mrs says I accept dangerous situations easily and have been lucky so far.to
I kind of missed the boat anyway as didn't get into MTB until 10-ish years ago, and I'm 43 now. Didn't do wreckless things in my youth, at least not of the bone breaking kind, so been getting more wreckless since riding off road. A fair few crashes and hospital trips, but not put me off, but has pointed out some limits. More so with the wide variety of people I ride with and so many of them being way younger, infinitely better skilled and confident. I realise I'm beyond that really. That said I don't want to miss out on interesting places so I still try to at least cope.
Bike upgrade time is making me wonder about scaling back from the big gnar bike to maybe less gnar. I love it but it's only 10% of the rides I really get the best out of it on, and I can't see me doing more DH-ish stuff, only less.
lifes too short to be injured all the time.
This for me. I'm 47 and have never been particularly gnar or grrr but I still seem to have had more than my fair share of minor accidents which have still been enough to put me out of action for work for weeks/months at a time. I still haven't fully recovered from my last one in January although I am at least riding again. I doubt I'll be able to run or walk any huge distance for another 6 months and anything over a few hundred metres has me limping at present.
Within a week of the last one I'd sold the full suspension and vowed to stick to Road from now on (I'm fully aware that carries it's own set of risks). Fast forward four months and I now have a fat bike to go with the roadie. I'll never be chasing pr's on that and that's just the way it's going to be from now on.
After going hell for leather the last three years and racking up 2 broken wrists, 2 dislocated shoulders and a scare over a suspected ruptured spleen i think I've finally got 'the fear'.
I was up at Gisburn on my own yesterday for the first time in a while. Has the qualifier drop off for hully gully always been that high? I never even used to blink at it, but taking all risks into consideration (and knowing that I could safely ride the trail itself) I went round it. Am i now a wuss? Will i ever recover my indifference to my personal safety!?
It's been changed and is no longer rollable, you've got to drop it.
At 56 now. I have had a 'mountain bike' one way and another since 1987, but only been seriously riding since winter 2010, when I finally stopped windsurfing and driving all the bloody miles to the coast.
I have some great local trails and ride 2 or 3 times a week. I'm no local hero, particularly competitive, or the bravest rider by any stretch.
This year, so far, some highlights in addition to local stuff have been: My first old school d/h trail uplift day. First time up Cadair Idris with a bike. Second round of broken ribs. First time round Mam Tor / Rushup / Jacobs ladder.
To come : I have Mountain Mayhem, solo fat bike ( this may well become an old fart with 3 or even 4 bikes, soon) and Ard Rock.
Every year, I think to myself, " Wonder if I can keep going to enjoy another 52 weekends"..
Two problems with the OP.
#1. It depends where you are staring from. If you were massvly in to dirt jumping and free riding I. Your 20s you could easily be going it easy relatively at 30.
#2. The Infering that xc means taking it easy. Xc. Bikes take more balls to ride over the same ground so although a trail might look easier, it may not be. You can still push to the limit on a xc bike it is just might look less Impressive but actually be just as technical and just as dangerous.
Pah, Never! What will I do instead, give it all up and have a nice quiet heart attack whilst shopping on a Sunday morning? Go to my grave stinking of beige, mundanity and daytime television?
Well **** that (pardon my French) do whatever you're comfortable with, do whatever you're uncomortable with. Ride a bike, buy a skateboard, climb a mountain whatever you want and do it until you exclaim 'wow!'
We get one bite at the cherry, better make it a good one because we're all worms meat in the end.
Edit: I'm also available for kids parties, bar mitzvahs and christenings 😯
42 and a half, and i'm riding bigger and better than i ever have. BUT, i'm also mentally assessing stuff much more than ever before. If i see something i'm not 100% sure of, i'll leave it for another day (generally, i'll eventually ride it, given enough time and feeling "right"), whereas in my 30's i'd have probably just thought "f-it" and hit something i was only 75% sure of......
I find the biggest issue now is that, having become a fairly skilled rider, when i'm at my peak, i can ride pretty well (if i say so myself, lol) but i really notice my bad days now, and when i'm riding below what i know is my ultimate capability.
Especially after time off the bike, even just a couple of weeks, i can really notice the backwards step, whereas as a more average rider, i was, er, more average most of the time, so an occasional off day was less noticeable!
39 here. Had a baby two years ago, then an off that resulted in a radial elbow fracture. Definitely slowed down a bit since then. Could also be that I don't get out as much now though.
Used to be out three to four times a week (live about a mile from Macc forest), but get out once a month or less now. I'm hoping I've not developed the fear and that getting out more is key.
51 - I've done more jumping this year than ever before. That's not saying much as I've never really done any, but still ...
That said, I'm a calmer skier than I used to be so, meh
Same age as the OP (well ok 1 year older 😉 ) started riding at the same age. So much has changed since we started riding. I look back at periods where I was fit/ fast (for me) or times when my skill levels really improved, times when I took risks, had big adventures etc. Had my worst injury ever a couple of years back & really noticed how being older affected my recovery. But in some ways nothing has changed. I still want to ride as much as ever, there's still loads to learn, places to go & see & new shiny things I'm probably going to want for my bike.
So I'm not stopping anytime soon & I can't imagine for a minute picking an arbitrary future date when I'll be calling it quits - or ever thinking 'mmm I wish I'd ridden my bike less'.
It depends where you are staring from. If you were massvly in to dirt jumping and free riding I. Your 20s you could easily be going it easy relatively at 30.
This for me. 46 now but I started the wind down in my late 20s (having started at 12 or 13 to really push myself). Backflips were all the rage in the BMX world and it was the one trick i wasn't prepared to learn (not having a foam pit doesn't help 😀 ). Still rode into my early 30s but was also big into motorbikes (off and on road) and gradually stopped riding bicycles altogether in favour of engines. It wasn't until i sold my motorbikes that i started mtbs at the ripe old age of 37 in 2007.
The skills i had honed in bmx easily transferred to mtb and things that most riders found difficult i found easy. Tech or steep stuff was never a problem nor were jumps - i was an all round bmxer who raced, did freestyle, street, rode ramps but dirt jumping was the thing i loved the mostest. The thing that took the longest to get my head around was learning to trust suspension - i still don't like it (it can be unpredictable at times) but you kinda need it. I'd say i'm still on the wind down now, but thankfully it's a slow process. Besides, i'm enjoying taking it easy when i feel like it and pushing on on the odd occasion.
I find the older I get the more I'm up for trying stuff. Mountain bikes didn't come out till I was in my 30s and for years I rode cautiously, probably because I was out with my kids. Now they've grown I feel liberated to ride how I like. I remember an old boy down the allotments once saying you are "once a man, twice a boy". He meant that as you reach old age you become dependent again. I find as I reach old age I'm letting my inner child come out again after years of responsibility (I'm 61 btw )