Scared to death of riding everything else but natural

[Jere_h]

I see people (typically from UK) that only ride street but never proper natural stuff, or just barely. Does it feel awkward and scary to you or just not interested? Or there just isn't much natural to ride?
For a contrast, I've ridden pretty much 99% natural since I started (Finland, so much nice forest and rocks), being in the nature mostly alone is part of the charm for me. And I found everything man made with sharp edges just so damn scary to approach. It's like the margin of error feels so much smaller than with round rocks and the typical pine forest environment.

It's funny because one could think that the random angles of rocks and all the unpredictable stuff would be difficult and awkward, but for me I actually don't find those that scary, just challenging. More scary I'd imagine launching a gap to front from a sharp edge of pallet, to another sharp edge of pallet. Or concrete.. And yet many people start learning the moves with those kind of obstacles in their backyard or something.

Likely just a matter of getting used to. But soon reaching my mid 30s and trying to avoid crashes as much as possible, doesn't help at all. Even just a slight bad movement might end up causing a spasm in my neck or back.

There's a small trials park on the parking lot side of my new riding spot so that will hopefully help a bit with time, but I never really enjoy riding those things. I've started to get some weird balance issues after 30's and just feel like getting high up on something narrow, slippery and sharp is a major risk, especially if exhausted and tired. Pallets and concrete blocks just roll so much easier than natural stuff, need to be much more precise with bike control.

[craigjames]

I think the majority of it is down to location. Good natural riding spots are fairly few and far between on this small island. Down here in the Southwest there are quite a few and you'll find that the local riders quite enjoy riding the variety of coastal, Dartmoor and Cornish natural spots. The same can be said for the other end of the country in Yorkshire/Derbyshire etc. There is also quite a lot in Wales. But a lot of these locations are reasonably far from the larger cities and concentrations of riders, where street riding dominates. 

[Ross McArthur]

MAKE NATURAL COOL AGAIN.

[aener]

3 hours ago, Jere_h said:

...

The UK has an overwhelming population density compared to Finland (279 people per square kilometer vs 18!) so a huge number of people living in the UK will find it quite hard to access "nice forest and rocks". It can definitely be done, and there are some great spots available, but you must have your own transport and time to get there. In some places I've lived, the nearest natural spot with enough to be a good ride was over an hour away in the car.

I think a lot of it is cultural, too. Likely in part because of the population thing, a lot of people here don't view being away from lots of people as a good thing. I've known some riders who are more scared to try something out in the woods because if they get hurt in town it's very easy to get help. Riding also has a social dimension for a lot of people who didn't grow up riding alone, too. I think it feels very similar to if you went on a ride and forgot your helmet. If you forgot your helmet, you can still ride and have fun, but it doesn't feel right to try difficult things in case it goes wrong. For some, there's a sense of security and even "rightness" to riding with other people versus riding alone, if you didn't grow up riding alone. I've always found riding with a couple of other people will make me willing to try things I wouldn't try if riding alone.
We were also fortunate enough to have a ridiculously rich riding scene in the 2000s, but a lot of the riders were quite young (so can't drive) so they rode whatever they could near home. When they made videos of it, other people wanted to do it so would CHOOSE to ride in towns because they had this or that landmark they wanted to visit. And then when you've grown up on it, it's just what you're used to. I personally enjoyed both, but I usually had more fun on street just because of the style of riding I grew in to.

Street and rocks are very different, so it's not surprising you find it scary if you never do it.
It's a lot like anything else - if it's scary to do something, do it 100 times and then you'll usually be much less scared of it.
That isn't always the case, but very often it is.

 

Edit: Here's a thing that might be a shock for your perspective.
A large number of the people that ride here NEVER ride alone.
It can get to a weekend and they want to ride, but if none of their friends are available to ride with, they just don't.
Not everyone is like that, of course, but quite a lot are.

Edited Wednesday at 02:47 PM by aener

[Jere_h]

Very good points. Although Finnish population is very unevenly spread compared to UK I'd say. In the south it's actually pretty tight and outside of that there's just forest and moose, to put it simply. I don't know a single trials rider that has been living outside the southern Finland zone, ever. The nature in the northern half especially is not very welcoming to trials. Mostly just wild forest, and the mosquitoes and horseflies are from another world there and it's already a trouble in the south. It would be plain impossible to stay still and focus on sidehops in the northern rural areas. The south, especially coastal area is full of phenomenal rocks and cliff so it's definitely ideal and one can find those very close to the city centers. In fact, some of the best spots have been in Helsinki area in the urban nature. Sadly those are often full of broken bottles and crowded with the kind of people you don't want to deal with, especially when trying to do such silly sport that nobody knows here.

But yeah it's still definitely mostly a cultural thing. As everyone can imagine Finns are much much more introverted than British. A major part of us don't exactly need friends for sports although group rides are often preferred too. Then there are also people who can't do a single thing without a friend.

Trials is a fun one here. When the UK got that 2000's boom, we had just a couple of dedicated riders here. In fact, one guy was pioneering the sport already in the 90's and was doing absolutely impossible things with those old high top tube mountainbikes. Those clips can be still found on Youtube somewhere.. In that time (during the British trials boom, when I was a kid but very much into bikes) I didn't know about the sport, now I can only wish I knew. Still when I started around 2017 all the guys from Helsinki area had basically quit, so I got nobody here to even think about riding with (only one non-biker friend who just liked to watch me progressing on rear wheel hops).

In fact only couple of years ago I accidentally bumped to one of the older guys when he was finishing his solo training in my local spot (super rare sight). Ended up chatting about possible winter indoors spots near Helsinki region and he told that they used to have one with a couple of local guys just few years ago. But in the end since everyone seemed to prefer training alone (for more serious comp training I guess), they just ended up having their own riding schedules so they could effectively avoid each other... 😂 Sounds like a joke but this is definitely super Finnish, there are certain types of folks who have a brain wiring like that, myself included. It's difficult to 100% focus on scary and mentally/physically demanding sport if you have to be socially active at the same time, using big part of the mental energy for that with people you don't completely know. We tend to have deeper friendships instead of just "mates" so that's part of the issue. The youngsters might be different nowadays but compared to UK they're still very "shy", although that's not exactly the right word.

Street riding in the city centers would obviously mean one has to be fairly outgoing, easy to focus despite of being bombed with "where's your saddle" kind of things (or at least lot of weird looks). For many of us this is too much to find it comfortable. For me personally, having to suddenly explain my sport to a random dude with a fatbike, might completely knock out my focus for the next 30 minutes after getting rid of that situation. Often that is enough to ruin the ride when the dude appears at the best possible time and it gets dark very early in the autumn days, so I try to avoid such situations. Especially if it's a spot that requires +1h driving. Natural riding is awesome for that.