- why mountain biking – part I -
Mountain biking is similar to other sports for many reasons. There are however reasons why mountain biking – to me – is fascinating, time consuming and above all a good laugh, over and above other sports. At school I was fairly sporty, competing for the school in various teams, from rugby to tennis. All were great fun. School however is different. It was something that we just did, like another subject on your timetable. There was no real alternative, and why should that matter it was fun!
Getting out on your mountain bike doesn’t fit into this category. You have to really want to do it. I know a number of people that have bought mountain bikes – not cheap ones either. Then life gets too busy and then the bike is soon at the back of the garage gathering dust.
In my humble opinion there are four good reasons why people absorb themselves into the sport of mountain biking.
- enjoyment – if it isn’t fun then everything is ten times harder.
- keeping fit – this could be main driver or just a perk of cycling.
- improving – this one is for the self esteem, don’t under estimate this.
- competition – some people just love to compete.
There is no magic formula. If you can honestly say that at least two ‘reasons’ are present then I’ll take a sportsmans bet that you’ll be mountain biking for a long time.
For many people enjoyment is the driving factor. Getting out on the bike with your mates, hitting the singletrack, enjoying a beer and laughing about the day is priceless. Get in a regular ride with a load of mates and you’ll be grinning after every ride. Fitness will just happen and you’ll be quietly pleased with yourself. You’ll enjoy remembering the routes that used to be a struggle.
Keeping fit is the interesting challenge. Make sure that you gauge how your fitness or weight is going. It might sound retentive but keep a diary. Average time for your ‘evening hack’, miles you mountain bike in a week or month. Set yourself fun little (or big) challenges. Then soon the fitness will hopefully ‘just happen’ and the enjoyment can take over. Then you’ll want to concentrate on the important things like improving your skill, cleaning a technical climb or just feeling confident enjoying a fast descent.
We’ll talk about competing in a latter post. However, if you are doing the things above, you’re probably already competing a bit with yourself.
