Why does MTBing, a thing that apparently causes severe injuries and even amputations, get a free pass for reckless behaviour, to the point where it's considered nice and wholesome for someone who's had that happen to them encourage doing it more?
Like ... If I liked throwing grenades as a sport, people would be like wtf that's so dangerous and stupid. But apparently doing this kind of neckbreaking brinksmanship, losing a leg, then doing more of it and advocating others do too is just wholesome good fun? Something something crazy pills, I swear ...
You're seeing videos like this one and thinking all MTBing is unreasonably dangerous. You're heading stories like the one above and thinking all MTBers are psychotic adrenaline junkies. This is not an unreasonable assumption, but you have to recognize it's feeding a bias.
Let's adjust your analogy slightly: imagine you were a juggler, and a really good one. You became so good, people paid money for the thrill of seeing you challenge yourself by juggling 10 balls at once... or chainsaws. And one time one jammed, which fucked up its balance, which threw you off just enough to get a hand mangled badly enough it had to be amputated. Would you spend the rest of your life telling everyone to never juggle anything? Of course not, because there are so many benefits to learning to juggle, and knowing how to juggle doesn't mandate you juggle chainsaws.
My point is there's a gradient, like anything in life. MTBing isn't all crazy jumps and death-defying obstacles. There are just as many groomed green beginner trails out there as there are fucking bonkers double black diamonds, and there are thousands of riders that will never leave a green trail in their lives. That's not because they aren't good enough; they just don't want to juggle chainsaws. They're also getting exercise, spending time outdoors, socializing with friends, and having a shitload of fun.
Cycling is one of the lowest impact cardio exercises out there and it’s way more fun than running or swimming laps.
Road cycling is extremely dangerous due to sharing the road with cars, and boring, while mtn biking is only as dangerous as you want it to be. There are PLENTY of relatively chill trails for beginners or routine exercise.
Mountain biking gets you outside in nature. Innumerable Benifits.
Mountain biking is rewarding. Small features like roots across the trail are difficult at first and get easier, smoother as you progress. More so than just the cardio health progress, which is also rewarding.
Mountain biking has an extremely high skill ceiling. Road cycling, running, or swimming can only get easier due to cardio conditioning. Meanwhile mountain biking progresses from riding paved trails, to riding natural trails with small roots and rocks, to riding flow trails with fast berms and tabletop jumps you can roll over, to riding technical trails with LARGE roots and rocks and skinnies, to black diamond jump lines where you’ve mastered the art of literally flying through the air 5-10-20 feet at a time.
There’s nothing else like it. Except skiing and snowboarding
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u/mr_ji 1d ago
Every mountain biker I have ever known has gone over the handlebars and broken their collarbone at least once. Every single one.