Mountain biking evolved

 I first rode my mountain bike in 1989 in a reservation right outside of the Boston area called the fells. M my initiation came by way of a co-worker who also Mountain biked he convinced me that I should try riding off road and that I'd love it we got together one Saturday morning and loaded our bikes into his vehicle which at the time was a retired ambulance we drove a few miles up to the trailhead and unloaded our bikes we went on about a 2-hour ride on what could be considered easy to moderate trails there were no restrictions on biking in the reservation at the time so we could go pretty much anywhere we wanted. Needless to say I had a blast I loved it but I also realized that I was severely out of shape and if I wanted to get better at this new activity I better get moving and start getting serious about physical fitness I was 29 years old and it's been the last six or so years trying to pursue my dream of becoming a rockstar. I was coming to a crossroads in my life as I approached my 30th birthday I was living with a drug dealer and working in a music store neither of which I found particularly satisfying my relationship was evolving and I was basically living with my girlfriend at the time, but but I would soon find out that the relationship was over and I needed to find a different way to live my life at the another thing that happened at this time was the company I was working for a small computer startup was about to file bankruptcy and go out of business this afforded me the option of not having to work for a living as the economy was tanking overall and unemployment benefits could be extended up to 18 months. I was able to spend a lot of time thinking about what I really wanted to do with my life I also started seeing a therapist at the time and in addition I gave up smoking pot and clubbing I took a break from playing in bands and participated in lots of self improvement activities including writing my bike a lot I started taking off weight and writing off-road especially became easier. I eventually was able to hook up with a group of serious and experienced mountain bikers guys who lived at 8 and breathed this stuff they had incredible fitness and incredible technical skills which were necessary for the more challenging trails around the area a couple of them even raced they would also go on day long rides from Boston to the North shore sometimes as far as Gloucester and they ended up calling that the all-terrain metrics the all-terrain century when they did it as a round trip because to get to and from required pretty much 100 miles of riding on a mountain bike. Paragraph I'm writing this blog entry today due to the evolution of mountain biking as I see it over the last 30 some years I started out with a very inexpensive mountain bike that I did buy at a bike shop and eventually kind of climb the ladder of mountain biking eventually buying more expensive and complicated bikes to the point where I have one now that costs more than I paid for my car. There are a lot of younger people getting into the sport now and what I'm seeing is the style of writing that's being promoted is a lot more extreme than what I thought was extreme back when I first started writing the phenomenon of free riding has promoted jumping the bikes over obstacles and off of ledges getting air and I'm subsequently seeing a lot of reports of accidents wherein bikers land the wrong way or take on an obstacle that's too much for their skill level misjudging an obstacle or what they can do and ending up with broken ankles broken arms broken shoulders fractured collar bones sometimes concussions bad cuts road rash or Trail rash interactions with other Trail users such as hikers or equestrians and generally what appears to be just bragging about how extreme an individual can be when riding a bike I just want to say that's not the reason why I got into mountain biking or Trail biking I got in cuz it was good exercise it was off the roads and away from cars it was a way to see a lot more of an area than I could if I was hiking on foot and I was also seeing how I could challenge myself physically and mentally to ride over various obstacles and take on new challenges but the idea of riding my bike over you know five or six foot ledges and landing and the toilet takes on the brain the body and the bike just eluded me and seems to promote an aspect of the sport that was formally reserved for professional riders who had paid sponsorships from bike companies and other related industries and we're able to do this full time whereas you know like most of us were amateurs we work day jobs some of us even have families who kind of count on us staying healthy and intact rather than you know ending up in the emergency room once every 6 months with some kind of a bike related injury.