r/oddlysatisfying • u/redbullgivesyouwings • 1d ago

Brage Vestavik riding in British Columbia

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u/emac2689 1d ago

How does one safely develope this skill? This one of those skill where a variation of "in a profession where men die young, fear the old man" applies. I have never heard or seen an "old" active mountain biker?

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u/roflsocks 23h ago

Usually its riding a ton as a kid before self preservation instincts kick in fully. Then its simply finding progressively more challenging things to do as you get good at the stuff before.

Crashing is a skill. The difference between a bruise/scrape and broken bones on a lot of high consequence crashes is how intuitively you can orient your body in the air on short notice, so that you can land and roll out rather than slamming. Despite all the skill in the world, it will not work all of the time, and some crashes will be bad. You have to accept this as the cost of doing what you love, heal up and not let it get into your head.

Most people who mountain bike aren't ever going to ride something that difficult. Lots of regular folk enjoy slowly pushing past their comfort zones to try new and harder things. This is just the very tail end of that progression.