Forum menu
An interesting approach to risk and self reliance.
Who said anything about self reliance? It's ****ing about on your bike ffs, you're not being some kind of extreme mountain man by riding your boring natural trails.
boring natural trails
You need to explore more - lol
or that you cant properly scare the pants off yourself like you can on wild
Just speed up!
Cheers molgrips
I'll try my bestest
Whooah there mr_ride_beyond_limits and hope someone else will pull me out of it...
It intrigues me reading stories like this, and then hearing statements like yours. An interesting approach to risk and self reliance.
Ride beyond my limits? Not me - too scared!
I think either I didn't write what I meant or you misread it. Rescues take a long time: I was at one a few years ago, it was maybe 400 metres from the end of the road, a clear day and in open country. Emergency services were called within 10 minutes. The air ambulance was called straight away as there were no vehicles available. It still took nearly two hours from accident to evacuation. Add in time to get to somewhere with a phone signal or even to somewhere with a phone and you can add several hours - a friend had a climbing accident and it was twelve hours until he was rescued, not pleasant hanging in a harness with a broken femur for that length of time.
Sorry for the slight digression ...
Oh, sod it, I'm going to stand up and be counted:
*** I love trail centres - they've changed my life!!! **
I love the way they are designed specifically to put a smile on your face, I love how the ups will always be rewarded with exhilarating downs, I love knowing that the trail design will probably rescue me when I get things wrong, and that I will probably not die of exposure if it doesn't, I love being able to ride without being attacked by brambles and without having to stop constantly to open gates and check the map, I love the fact that almost all of them are entirely free to use (how lucky are we?), and how the latest pump-track style trails make my kids (and me) very happy, I could go on.
As it happens, I probably ride "natural" trails more, but then they're cool too.
Oh, and while I'm at it:
** I love Strava - it's also changed my life!!! **
Wow, I feel so much better already. And cheaper than a therapist.
Riding beyond limits in some situations gets you a grazed knee and hip. In others it would get you killed. You have to know the risks of your immediate surroundings.