Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

Well, it's harder to push a knicked safe down a manhole!

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25-35ish depending on your heft

Nice one ta

Is there some kinda mantra to force me to chill the fuck out and slow down time and concentrate on the actual technicalities of this stuff?

I'd say either combine it with another hobby/interest ( maybe not scrap metal hoarding ) that makes you slow down to look at your surroundings more

or

Find really technical stuff to ride, which will force you to ride slowly, while still engaging your brain.

Yeah... this too! 😂

You don't so much pull on the bars as throw your arse back. It takes getting over the fear of cracking your skull into the ground (this doesn't actually happen your feet just slide off and you run with the bike on the back wheel a bit). You use the back brake a little to stop looping out.
But I never did get the hang of it and shouldn't really be offering "advice".

There's shitloads of videos on this kind of thing now. I used to watch how to ride biketrials VHS videos of this kind of stuff back in the day.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+manual+a+mountain+bike

Tricks & Stunts, with the two Marts and Hans Rey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqrImfzFgUI

I'm too shit to even hop curbs these days.

Seth's bike hacks youtube vids are good for this shiz.

A pal of mine (another nearly 50-year-old) recently built a 'manual machine'. Apparently, you move your weight down, then back....

https://youtu.be/kR03KlKdnlE

Outwardly, I mock him.... inwardly, I want to build one too...

Seth's bike hacks

I think I watched one of his videos where he converted his bike to SS. I mocked him for crushing his bars, but he could outride the shit outta me.

Yeah, it was him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nm8NQjpgv8&t=306s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpJeEpc1C8g

Yeah I want one of these.

And yeah, it's all about getting butt wayyyyyy back.

I think the saddle is in my way, I tried getting my ass off the back of it and ran out of arms...plus the mega stem keeps me pretty stretched out. I’ll try later when I drop off some bike lights to a mate. The vids/advice/anecdotes are very appreciated.

Also, the bike cost me pennies, so i guess there are no budget options for dropper posts? They seem the most amazing-useful upgrade.

Short stems definitely help with this kind of stuff. I used to run a 110mm? xc stem for racing and when I started doing dumb shit found a stumpy 50mm much easier to get onto the back wheel.

Use a QR seatpost clamp and drop it when 'playing', raise it when riding.

#budgetoptionz

Hmm yea. Was thinking something like this, short stem and slamming the saddle rails back, but the (ex cat-... racer) manager at the shop was really against me shortening the stem, that it’d throw me more upright in general. He was more into negative rise and cut-down bars for the aeroz.

Yea got a QR but also, lazy.

manager at the shop was really against me shortening the stem

Politely suggest that he should

Yea I quietly went from the Schwalbe 40-559’s to the Barzo 55-559’s without his approval... he said balloons will be slow and chunky, and to look for narrow xc tyres, so I went for the widest xc possible (and love it).

But the stem would come from the basement in the shop, so I kinda need the green light to get down there. There’s a Selle SMP with my name on it too, though.

Fun spin in Thetford this morning.

https://instagram.com/p/BpxQWiiFfGM/

Tried the seat way lower on the way to drop spare bike lights to a mate and it just felt really shit to ride. Long stem feels like the big issue stopping me getting my ass way back. Try again tomorrow.

Observations from today’s ride up Lea Valley canal. 1st ride on an mtb for 25 yrs!

Single speed is fun
Suspension had come a long way, my last set of forks were mk1 Pace. I discovered halfway through the ride I can lock them out
Cannot jump, at all
Manuals, can’t do them either
Bars are really wide
It’s really nice not encountering any cars for a whole ride (I bought an mtb off the back of Lance Armstrong saying this on one of his TDF podcasts, if you’d said a couple of years ago I’d be taking his advice...)
Basically I can’t ride mtb for shit but had fun!

Basically I can’t ride mtb for shit but had fun!

You are a natural Badger then. @Howard is pretty good, perhaps too good. We have to eye him suspiciously.

Zero cars is my number one reason too ...!

Howard is pretty good

Never heard of him.

Lairy full sus bike guy who follows us around. Bit of a neat freak - always banging on about the bike wash.