Mountain Biking: Retaining Childhood Memories

If I ever been asked about the most achievement I proud of during my lifetime would be riding bicycle. Think of it as a skill with high difficulties, since I have to maintain speed and balance to ride it. Failure in maintaining body balance will resulting in one unfavorable situation, fell off. Inability to keep sufficient speed will resulting in the same unfavorable situation as well, fell off. Hence, riding bicycle requires specific skill for sure. Glad I learned this when I was a kid, so that I have another choice of outdoor activities: mountain biking.

First time I learned to ride a bicycle, I fell off for many times because of many different factor followed by one reason, that is unable to keep my balance. It left bruises on all over my body. Not to mention, ran over bushes, slipped into the gutter and slipped from the seat (the last one did not leave bruises, but it was really hurt on the butt). The most notable accident was when I rode down the hill too fast as I can no longer control the speed, I hit bamboo trees before I knew it. It was not only hurt me, but also broke my bicycle. As part of learning process, I think all these accident were happened on every bicycist at least once.

I learned some tricks with bicycle such as front-wheel standing, back-wheel standing and no-hand cycling. The easiest way to pull up front wheel is by using lowest gear setting. Therefore, I will be able to maintain balance by winding the gear fast. Back-wheel standing could be done by combining sudden front-wheel brake and moving weight toward the front wheel. While no-hand cycling requires good bicycle with stable body.

Mountain biking, even it is using bicycle, doesn’t give much chance to pull out some tricks I mentioned above. The challenge of mountain biking is more about encounter obstacles rather than wheelie actions. The track mostly covered with dirt as opposed to hard paveway. Maintaining control is more important in mountain biking. The best part of it is the natural surrounding as I rode across pine tree forest.

~ by basdotblog on August 31, 2008.