A none too serious take on mountain biking.

Until a couple of weeks ago I was a mountain bike virgin. I saw people on them but had never ridden one. Now I have begun the very bumpy and bum bruising process of finding out what you can and, more importantly, can’t do on a mountain bike.

So far I’ve learned these important facts that might be helpful for mountain bike novices like myself.

1. The term mountain bike is a misnomer, they should really be called “Track Bikes” because that’s what they are designed for. In order to ride one up a mountain you’d need nuclear powered legs, in order to ride one down you’d have to either not care if you got to the bottom alive or have already written a suicide note.

2. If you see a boulder coming as you head down the hill do something about it right away. What you do doesn’t really matter, your life is already hanging in the balance and it’s probably a matter of chance whether you survive or not. If you spend any time at all trying to decide what to do you will have already hit the boulder and parted company from the bike several seconds before you try and act.

Read more here http://johndburns.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/confessions-of-a-mountain-bike-novice/

1. Enjoy the ride, whatever you do.

2. Look where you want to go, not at the immovable object.

I made the mistake of fixating on a tree once, needless to say I hit it. !st thing I have taught my children is about target fixation. If you look at something you will hit it so look at the gap not at the problem as per what Neil said.

Is your blog worth a read then?

It’s worth getting your hands on a book from the early days of mountain biking, called The Mountainbike Way of Knowledge, by Bill Neally. It’s a light hearted cartoon based book that does contain a lot of useful tips for the novice, such as The Grin Level. I picked a copy up for a friend for a few quid recently, think he enjoyed it.

Still trying to drive traffic to your blog huh?

Most of the stw denizens are so far beyond your pretty basic musings that I can’t really see your efforts giving you much more than transient traffic.

Given your writing style, have you tried the Saga forum? You might do better there with your incredulous tone.

Try buying a proper mountain bike rather than a bike that looks like a mountain bike.

If you spent as much time riding as you do drumming up traffic for your blogs you might ride better?

Tis all a bit meh for my liking. Interesting stories draw me in, whatever the level of skill – see Simeon Orme’s (Southlakes) ride reports from the South Lakes RSF for example. This just seems a little too contrived to me…