Psychology of an older rider

[Bruce CurtisMember]

yeah I am going to clear my mind and give myself a mental recharge, I ride every weekend as a rule, every second is serious with either one of two groups of fanatics, then every other with my son and maybe another nothing too demanding mainly just so he’s getting seat time and relearns his rythym with clutch & gears, and I practice silly stuff like stoppies andd low spped handlebar dragging hillclimbs that sorta stuff, get a bit tired go over the the marquee and sit down for 20 and do it again.

so I’m going to stop dwelling on it, cause i know how to find my “zone” on a closed circuit track well enough and will start applying that to the trails as well. Rest relaxation, good diet and reasonable state of fitness help as well, and the main part is focus and concentration without thought.
On another related note one of the problems I have seen though is when 1 or 2/3 riders are “ON” the rest of the group get left behind badly, and those who are “ON” get lost in their own world and just go…..this is what else happens in both groups at times, nothing wrong with it, just the nature of the beast.

Mr Blue

[Mick DMember]

I am amazed that KTMRAT hasn’t bought into this one. He is big on ride psychology, he always touches on it at his MX schools,things like, stuff you do to “switch on” prior to a race etc.

[PeterMember]

Mr Blue wrote:

Quote:

SirDAL I think a nail has been hit with your comparision to the “other” performance anxiety (& being men we shall never speak of such things again)

Mr Blue

Mate quite happy to never go there again:laugh:

Quote:

BTW rode a killer beautifully prepared ’08 CRF450, almost made me want some extra valves in my bike, best damn thing I have ever slung a leg over.

A mate had an 03 Crf450r(this was his first ever bike and he bought it to learn on:ohmy: ) and wanted reg so got a 450x but while he had both talked me into going out for a ride on the R and the buzz I got off that is what firmly glued me back onto a bike seat again:woohoo:

[Anonymous]

I reckon it is old age to an extent. I am getting it too at almost 30 years old. Now I haven’t been riding enduro bikes all that long but have raced downhill MTB and a few other similar sports that require some ‘commitment’ at times. I can say that I used to have a bad stack, get up, get on with it (if nothing was broken) and not think about it. Adrenalin did it’s job and I was straight back into it, no looking back.

These days I have noticed that I do get shaken up by these crashes and need to recoup for a period of time to find my ‘mojo’ again. This only normally takes a few minutes as the adrenalin seems to overtake my fear and I settle back in.

The point is that is does take me longer to find my groove again as I get older. You also have a better appreciation of what it feels like to crash from painful experience and this bears down on you too. Almost everybody is more sensible when they get older than when they were young.

I agree with the advice above though, clearing your mind and trying to focus on the task at hand is the best way forward. Bike fitness and weekly rides will certainly help too.

If I can ride with a bunch of 20 year old guns from week to week on a fiesty 250 crosser in 14 years time I will be very happy

[Author]

Posts