"Blackblade" wrote in message ...
[...]

Edward Dolan wrote:

Hiking is not dangerous at all provided you use your common
sense. Biking on trails is dangerous no matter how much common sense you
exercise. That is because it is a stupid thing to be doing in the first
place.

I reiterate. If hiking is safe then how come people end up dead doing it ? Read the report from the Lake District. The casualties were mostly caused by people falling over precipices either because they tripped on the trail or because visibility was poor due to weather. If you think that you can go out into wilderness, on foot or on a bike, and be perfectly safe then you're deluding yourself.

A hiking accident resulting in death is so rare it is freakish. A biking accident on a trail resulting in death is so common that it is boring just reading about it.

Too bad we can't raise from the dead all those killed by
mountain biking and ask them if it (being dead) was worth it


Life is for living. I'd far rather have a shorter, but active and full,
life than a morose and miserable descent into grumpy old age.

You are quite mistaken about that. Every age has its own
rewards, but you have to live long enough to reach old age in order to know
that. Grumpiness is extremely enjoyable! Hells Bells, I have been morose and
miserable my whole life. We Americans only pursue happiness. We never catch
it.

Well, I am not in the business of telling anyone else how to live their life ... but I am not grumpy and I am, mostly, very happy. I am not interested in the pursuit of an elusive goal at the end of my lifetime, I am interested in enjoying and living my life now. For me, that involves an element of exhilaration and joy ... which I experience when I push my boundaries.

Too much pursuit of enjoying your life now can result in not having any life later. Pushing physical boundaries is for fools since the law of gravity has never yet been repealed. Find some joy and exhilaration doing something that does not push physical boundaries. Why not try pushing some mental boundaries instead ... like with Beethoven, for instance?

Mountain bikers are barbarians and have no right to be on any trail used by hikers – unless they want to get off their god damn ****ing bikes and walk like everyone else. When they crash and injure themselves, I rejoice! If and when they manage to kill themselves, I say good riddance to bad rubbish! Death to mountain biking!

“Tread softly! All the earth is holy ground.”
~ Christina Rossetti (Psalm 24),
from "A Later Life: A Double Sonnet of Sonnets"

Mountain bikes have wheels. Wheels are for roads.

Trails are for walking. What’s the matter? Can’t walk?

Ed Dolan the Great
aka
Saint Edward the Great