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You underestimate your bodies strength. There are people of 98 years that do a full triathlon, so there is no excuse for you not to able to do that. You can do

You underestimate your bodies strength. There are people of 98 years that do a full triathlon, so there is no excuse for you not to able to do that. You can do anything when you put your 10k hours in, but not on the first try. If mountain biking is your dream buy a Trek with electric motor in it. They can give you extra lift till you accelerate to 75 km/hour with a dongle of $120. Instant pro biking experience without much practicing. You are too young to accept any physical limitations of your body. Navy Seals talk about that being tired is just an emotion like feeling happy. Its all about your mindset.

luhn 6y ago
You really shouldn't be saying "you could do it if you really tried" to people when you don't know their situation. Maybe they have a bad knee. Maybe they have a chronic illness. Maybe they don't have the money to spend. It's not a personal failing to be unable to do something, and it's toxic to take that attitude.
- thwarted 6y ago
  "Don't encourage anyone because they might not be able to do it" is the shittiest and most toxic attitude I've ever heard.
  - luhn 6y ago
    Interpreting my comment as "don't encourage anyone" is an extremely uncharitable take. Support their endeavors, celebrate successes, be empathetic of failure. Don't tell them "no excuse for you not to able to do that."
    - thwarted 6y ago
      "You could do it if you really tried" is not the same as "no excuse for you not to able to do that". It's a sad state of affairs if the exchange needs to be "please share your situation with me so I can know if it's appropriate to offer words of encouragement" before offering words of encouragement.
      - lowdose 6y ago
        Thanks. I could only upvote you twice! It's so crazy to limit speech to not excluding any edge case. 95% are capable of doing anything they want and the other 5% will never want to be judged on physical constraints. Lets take an example of the most brilliant people of our time while also extremely handicapt Steven Hawkins. What would he care he was excluded in a statement like this?
  - deleted 6y ago
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- deleted 6y ago
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chepaslaaa 6y ago
I agree with the fitness argument, but the safety argument is a legitimate one. I live in a mountain town with a big mountain biking community, almost everyone who pushes themselves in that sport will be dealing with injuries at one point. It can be as benign as a torn ACL or a broken clavicle, but I'm also friends with a guy who broke his pelvis (he completely healed and is a great athlete, I've seen him do a 360 on telemarks last winter) and worked with a guy who's currently in a neckbrace after breaking 2 vertebra. Those last two people are both lucky they didn't die. You don't need to be a great mountain biker to go dangerously fast, it's very easy to become overconfident, and the downhill nature means that you might also fall from certain heights on top of already carrying speed, and not necessarily on soft dirt, maybe onto rocks or into a tree. It's a gnarly sport. The commentator you were talking to should at least go on some mellow bike rides or something.
ornornor 6y ago
For those curious about tweaking your ebike, I found this: https://www.electricbiketuning.com/ https://www.electricbiketuning.com/ I doubt you’ll hit 75kph with a 36V Motor though. My 52V mid drive would get me to around 40–50kph on a good day, flat terrain, no wind, and pedaling hard. I put it back to 25kph max because riding so fast on a bicycle was too dangerous in my opinion... cars don’t expect you to come so fast, and I was getting too dangerously confident. I was also worried about the consequences should I get in a crash and the bike is investigated to see whether it was legal. For those interested in diy, the tsdz2 mid drive is a pretty good motor that has a torque sensor and that you can add to most bicycles. There is also an open source alternative firmware for it that’s pretty good. See https://github.com/OpenSource-EBike-firmware/TSDZ2_wiki/wiki https://github.com/OpenSource-EBike-firmware/TSDZ2_wiki/wiki
close04 6y ago
> Navy Seals talk about that being tired is just an emotion like feeling happy. Its all about your mindset. But it isn't really. Even taking that statement at face value you're still talking about people who are selected for their physical skills and then spend much of their prime training and preparing physically like their lives depended on it. Because it does. But they suck at many other things and they do have an excuse to not be able to do them. One person cannot "specialize" in too many things and downhill extreme mountain biking is not a thing to do half-assed without risking your well-being. Getting the skill and the physical strength to do it is both time consuming but more importantly very risky.
dmoy 6y ago
> Navy Seals talk about that being tired is just an emotion like feeling happy. BUD/S has like a 25% pass rate, of people who are even allowed to try. Not saying that a navy seal can't just decide to not be tired anymore, but for the rest of us mere mortals....
- ThinkBeat 6y ago
  They also have access to unlimited amounts of pure prescription amphetamine. It helps. No critique. When you have to operate under circumstances like that and your life and your fellow soldiers lives are at stake it makes sense. Has inherent problems though. https://sofrep.com/news/navy-seals-get-addicted-drugs-doc-issued/ https://sofrep.com/news/navy-seals-get-addicted-drugs-doc-is...
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    > unlimited amounts of pure prescription amphetamine. ... in the field. Same with pilots -- they issue speed to dudes flying bombers long distances. But they're not taking speed during selection and training. That's just you, and figuring out if you can hack it is the point.

luhn 6y ago

You really shouldn't be saying "you could do it if you really tried" to people when you don't know their situation. Maybe they have a bad knee. Maybe they have a chronic illness. Maybe they don't have the money to spend. It's not a personal failing to be unable to do something, and it's toxic to take that attitude.

thwarted 6y ago
"Don't encourage anyone because they might not be able to do it" is the shittiest and most toxic attitude I've ever heard.
- luhn 6y ago
  Interpreting my comment as "don't encourage anyone" is an extremely uncharitable take. Support their endeavors, celebrate successes, be empathetic of failure. Don't tell them "no excuse for you not to able to do that."
  - thwarted 6y ago
    "You could do it if you really tried" is not the same as "no excuse for you not to able to do that". It's a sad state of affairs if the exchange needs to be "please share your situation with me so I can know if it's appropriate to offer words of encouragement" before offering words of encouragement.
    - lowdose 6y ago
      Thanks. I could only upvote you twice! It's so crazy to limit speech to not excluding any edge case. 95% are capable of doing anything they want and the other 5% will never want to be judged on physical constraints. Lets take an example of the most brilliant people of our time while also extremely handicapt Steven Hawkins. What would he care he was excluded in a statement like this?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

chepaslaaa 6y ago

I agree with the fitness argument, but the safety argument is a legitimate one. I live in a mountain town with a big mountain biking community, almost everyone who pushes themselves in that sport will be dealing with injuries at one point. It can be as benign as a torn ACL or a broken clavicle, but I'm also friends with a guy who broke his pelvis (he completely healed and is a great athlete, I've seen him do a 360 on telemarks last winter) and worked with a guy who's currently in a neckbrace after breaking 2 vertebra. Those last two people are both lucky they didn't die. You don't need to be a great mountain biker to go dangerously fast, it's very easy to become overconfident, and the downhill nature means that you might also fall from certain heights on top of already carrying speed, and not necessarily on soft dirt, maybe onto rocks or into a tree. It's a gnarly sport. The commentator you were talking to should at least go on some mellow bike rides or something.

ornornor 6y ago

For those curious about tweaking your ebike, I found this: https://www.electricbiketuning.com/ https://www.electricbiketuning.com/ I doubt you’ll hit 75kph with a 36V Motor though. My 52V mid drive would get me to around 40–50kph on a good day, flat terrain, no wind, and pedaling hard. I put it back to 25kph max because riding so fast on a bicycle was too dangerous in my opinion... cars don’t expect you to come so fast, and I was getting too dangerously confident. I was also worried about the consequences should I get in a crash and the bike is investigated to see whether it was legal. For those interested in diy, the tsdz2 mid drive is a pretty good motor that has a torque sensor and that you can add to most bicycles. There is also an open source alternative firmware for it that’s pretty good. See https://github.com/OpenSource-EBike-firmware/TSDZ2_wiki/wiki https://github.com/OpenSource-EBike-firmware/TSDZ2_wiki/wiki

close04 6y ago

> Navy Seals talk about that being tired is just an emotion like feeling happy. Its all about your mindset. But it isn't really. Even taking that statement at face value you're still talking about people who are selected for their physical skills and then spend much of their prime training and preparing physically like their lives depended on it. Because it does. But they suck at many other things and they do have an excuse to not be able to do them. One person cannot "specialize" in too many things and downhill extreme mountain biking is not a thing to do half-assed without risking your well-being. Getting the skill and the physical strength to do it is both time consuming but more importantly very risky.

dmoy 6y ago

> Navy Seals talk about that being tired is just an emotion like feeling happy. BUD/S has like a 25% pass rate, of people who are even allowed to try. Not saying that a navy seal can't just decide to not be tired anymore, but for the rest of us mere mortals....

ThinkBeat 6y ago
They also have access to unlimited amounts of pure prescription amphetamine. It helps. No critique. When you have to operate under circumstances like that and your life and your fellow soldiers lives are at stake it makes sense. Has inherent problems though. https://sofrep.com/news/navy-seals-get-addicted-drugs-doc-issued/ https://sofrep.com/news/navy-seals-get-addicted-drugs-doc-is...
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  > unlimited amounts of pure prescription amphetamine. ... in the field. Same with pilots -- they issue speed to dudes flying bombers long distances. But they're not taking speed during selection and training. That's just you, and figuring out if you can hack it is the point.