A Quick Guide to Mountain Biking

If you’ve never been mountain biking before, it can be tempting to ask, “what’s the difference between that and regular biking? Just the mountains?” Well, essentially, yes! But if you’ve never been mountain biking, the little differences between tackling a more difficult type of terrain and your typical biking excursion can draw a stark contrast between the two styles of biking. If you want to go mountain biking, it’s time to learn how. Here’s a quick guide to help get you started.

First, you’ll want to make safety an even higher priority. It should be priority #1 when you’re biking at all times, but you also want to make sure that you are extra careful for your mountain biking excursions. As always, bring a helmet and pads. You’ll also want to pay special attention to the condition of your bike, making sure that the brakes work fine and that nothing major is loose. You’ll need to keep control over your bike at all times, so make sure you also make sure to ride with a clear, focused attitude.

Second, you have to make sure that your conditioning can handle the new challenge. Mountain biking often means that you’ll encounter a lot of changes in either terrain or elevation – or both – so make sure that you have the legs to pull it off, not to mention the right kind of riding style so that you waste as little energy as possible. Mountain biking will also come with downhill treks, yes, but you’ll also want to make sure that your bicycling can handle that kind of gravity. Don’t throw caution to the wind!

Third, since you’ll be unfamiliar with the kind of trail you’re going to be tackling, make sure you grow in familiarity with those trails before you start to push the envelope a little bit. You don’t want to take out the sense of adventure from your mountain biking, but you also want to make sure that you can remain safe, and being familiar with the terrain you’re riding on will be a giant step in the right direction.

Will you be perfect the first time you mountain bike? Probably not. But that’s the point of going out – to push yourself out of your comfort zone, adapt to new challenges, and give yourself a vigorous workout that you can’t get when sitting on the couch and eating candy.

Photo Credits: tonylanciabeta

This post involves:

attitude, brakes, caution to the wind, elevation, excursion, familiarity, giant step, gravity, helmet, legs, little bit, little differences, mountain bike, mountain biking, mountains, new challenge, priority 1, stark contrast, step in the right direction, throw caution to the wind

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Biking, Safety

Posted by Bike Swim Run on October 23, 2009 in Biking, Safety. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.