[Closed] Fight vs Flight or How to Ruin a Ride

As someone who doesn't ride anything technical I might be speaking out of turn, but the way I see is is that rider 2's reactions avoided a potentially very nasty crash.; if both had tried to accelerate their way out of trouble you might be writing a very different thread!

-- Edit --

I'm assuming that both riders hit the same section of trail at the same time, or am I misunderstanding?

Rider 1 is me 20 years ago. Rider 2 is me now, older and with several broken bones and metal implants to my name. I wish I could go back and yell at Rider 1 to "take it easy mate!"

@Pjay You are clearly a glass half full type of person 🙂 Unfortunately, I find that freezing (tensing up) actually increases my chances of crashing. Especially if I'm trying to force myself to just ride it anyway.

Not sure if it's hard wired, or even conditioned into us? Some days I'm he guy in front, other days I'm the one behind. Some days I go out as number 2 and after clearing the first tricky bit change my mind.

What I do know is if I'm having a bad day, never to try and push my way out of it.  Both of my mtb-ing broken arms were from crashes on days when it just wasn't coming together* and I had the fear but was pushing anyway.  I put it down to the idea that most of riding is subconscious and reactions rather than thinking, and if your subconscious isn't in "the zone" and is trying to get you to hold back then no matter how hard you consciously try and push you'll just ride like a sack of spuds and crash.

*the third was a commuting home from work, although I was in a shitty mood so maybe the same principle applies.

Not sure I agree with PJay or the sentence in the OP... I used to be the throw myself down stuff and attack type, crashes? made me feel alive! But too many crashes (lack of real talent) and age have caught up with me and now I'll walk/mince it. Or stay on safer stuff. A lot of stuff I [i]know[/i] I can ride, but my head fills with potential bad scenarios, which can be very frustrating.

There's a drop on the local DH park - my son did it, I went round.. (argh, OTB, goes brain) - went back and after the 4th or 5th try popped off it no problem. Sometimes it takes time to get the head right and you don't always have the chance to let it.

I wish I could go back and yell at Rider 1 to “take it easy mate!”

Even if you could, he wouldn't listen to you - because he knows better than you.

"Youth is wasted on the young"

depends on so many things, sometimes I'm rider 1, most of the time I seem to be rider 2.

I try to visualise myself taking the line I want, body position right, looking at the trail ahead, before I get to section I know I struggle with, doesn't always work but it's why I keep on riding!

It's training basically, start small, get used it gradually scaring yourself and getting over it. You gradually get better. I've progressed from 10ft drops as a teenager on my bmx to 4 inch drops in my 30's to about 1ft in my 40's...

Yes, fair point, we are all both at different times. What frustrates me though is that I seem to have almost no control over which one I'll be. It's happening automatically and subconsciously. Sometimes I'll hit a section of trail and just get the urge to go for it. Other times I'll try to hit the same section of trail but just freeze. I may be able to force myself to try (but only in a negative way, by beating myself up) but all that does is increase the chances of crashing.

To make things even more frustrating, if I know there is a tricky section coming up I'm much more likely to become rider 2 when I hit it.

That basically describes the difference between me riding flats vs clips!

there doesn’t seem to be much that we can do to affect how we react

Not true - practice, skills training, mental / willpower training and desire can all increase your confidence to allow you to be Rider 1. I've been full circle on this a couple of times.

As Sarah Connor once said, there is no fate but what we make.

Be the master of your own destiny.

You are not a product of your environment, your environment is a product of you.

etc.

where are you...

if you're unconscious then I would question your competence

The first rider is in the green zone. The second is in the red zone. You need to progressively challenge yourself to increase your skills and confidence without scaring yourself (too much).

How long have you been doing 'technical' MTBing for? How often do you ride?

I used to be rider 2 when I started riding 10 years ago in my late 20's but over the last few years have started pushing things a bit and turned into rider 1 but with the added experience of knowing this

if your subconscious isn’t in “the zone” and is trying to get you to hold back then no matter how hard you consciously try and push you’ll just ride like a sack of spuds and crash

Been there a few times and done that, I can usually tell pretty early in a ride if I'm not really "on it" and if that's the case I'll just go and do a nice xc ride rather than risk anything.

You aren't as good as you think you are. Need to practise more, much more. Until technical stuff becomes second nature. And the responses to unexpected things happening.

I've had to start again after ~3 years off the bike. I'm now very much rider 2 with fairly recent memory of being rider 1. Bits i used to rip down (or up) at speed, on the power. I'm now picking my way through. On the brakes, or god forbid, having to walk. Got one little rocky section/loop near me that i used to be able to do in ~6 minutes. It now takes me 10+. And there's now a couple of bits i can't get up, and another 2 or 3 i can't get down. I have to get off.

It'll come. I hope.

brakes

if you’re unconscious then I would question your competence

Oh wow - I thought it was just me who got annoyed when people say unconscious when they mean subconscious!

You can certainly increase your comfort zone through experience, training etc and learn to ride things that you find tricky but that's not really the issue. There is still this fight or flight reponse that is effectively out of our conscious control. Faced with the same level of perceived danger some people will attack and some will run away. My hypothesis is that mountain biking favours those who tend to attack.

There does seem to be some evidence that you can condition yourself to fight rather than flee. These techniques are used in training soldiers for example, but don't sound like much fun.

When I was younger I didn't have the confidence or ability so was always rider #1, but more now than ever I'm sometimes rider #2, but sometimes if I see something really hard that I'm not sure about then I'm like rider#1. I just think learning to mountain bike on hardest terrain takes time and I'm in my 30's now having started the sport in my 20's (whoever can afford to do it 'properly' at a younger age than that ?) and think it just takes a long time to get enough bike control skill to handle all types of terrain and obstacles, and am hoping to see a lot more progression over the next 1-5 years.

Faced with the same level of perceived danger some people will attack and some will run away

but your assumption is that both riders perceive the same danger but react differently to it.

rider 1 doesn't see it as dangerous. either because they don't recognise it as dangerous (unconscious incompetent) or they know they have the skills to ride it safely (conscious competence). I'd say your in the conscious incompetence phase where you are aware of not having the skills you need.

and unconscious vs subconscious.  same thing. can be used interchangeably.

and unconscious vs subconscious.  same thing. can be used interchangeably.

Nooo! 😆

the response seems to be hard-wired into us. Maybe it’s in a our genes, maybe it’s a response to conditioning, but as we drop into that section of trail there doesn’t seem to be much that we can do to affect how we react

Yes there is, improve your skills !

I will quite happily jump off a 30ft cliff on a pair of skis or ski down 45 deg slopes.  No chance of getting me to do either on a bike as my skills are not good enough, I would love to be able to though

Interesting though with people like Danny Macaskill - huge amount of skill but by the sounds of it a bit of a screw loose too.

but your assumption is that both riders perceive the same danger but react differently to it.

rider 1 doesn’t see it as dangerous. either because they don’t recognise it as dangerous (unconscious incompetent) or they know they have the skills to ride it safely (conscious competence). I’d say your in the conscious incompetence phase where you are aware of not having the skills you need.

I think both are true. I think two riders (or even the same rider on different days) can see the same trail very differently. What we think is a "true" image of the world around us is actually really more of a map, but that's a different discussion. I also think it's true that, faced with the same stimulus (i.e. the same perceived level of danger) some people naturally fight while others naturally flee. Those that naturally fight will, in my opinion, progress faster in our sport than those who flee. But I'm not denying that both can learn to ride almost anything.

It's a mental game like you say your talking yourself out of it. You need to hit the trail confident, to do this you need to be in the right frame of mind thinking the worse scenario will lead you to not pushing it. You need to think positive think about how good it will feel when you get to the bottom having flowed round the trail. A bit of positive self talk will take you a long way. If you know the trail imagine the more technical parts and imagine how it can go well. Like you say physically you can do it technically you have the ability but mentally your struggling. Try positive thinking on a few easier sections to build up your confidence.

I've smashed down technical, rocky descents and looked back thinking "I really need to calm down". No doubt it'll go wrong one day 🙂

if the responses to threat are fight, flight or freeze then rider 1 isn't necessarily fighting because they don't perceive the trail to be a serious threat since they are familiar with it, sufficiently confident that they can ride it without injury or the prospect of injury isn't that fearful to them

Rider 2 is imagining the potential for injury and that triggers the freeze - or flight depending on how you want to view the reaction. They can overcome or reduce the fear and the response to it by getting more comfortable with what they fear so they can rationalise it and respond with a thinking brain. It's yer classic cortex vs amygdala innit?

There's loads of books and stuff about this sort of thing, you can read up on it and be an expert like what I am.

I flip between 1 and 2, it depends on where my head's at.

Wierdly, I've ridden stuff blind, following friends flat out, and been fine. I've then walked the section, and ridden it again like a useless idiot. Shows how much of it is a head game.

Can't believe there's only two graphs on this thread...

Find yourself a piece of technical trail and ride it slowly. Then do it again. Then again. Don't let yourself go home until you can ride it confidently and a pace you're happy with.

I did something similar when i got back into bicycles. I used ride BMX dirt a lot. Then after a 15+ year break i got back into bikes. Big, weird mtbs. I went to the jumps and although i was terrified i started small and sessioned the easier ones. Once i got a taste for it i gradually progressed to the larger ones. I told myself that i wasn't leaving until i'd cleared all the jumps. Took me all day but did wonders for my jumping confidence. I've yet to ride a trail that's scarier than a large double 😀

I like to ride stuff that almost makes me rider 2 at the top of the trail, becoming rider 1 by the bottom. 🙂

Doesn't always work like that of course.

As said above, it really isn't fight or flight. If you have the skill to ride technical terrain quickly then there isn't a risk. I, for example, feel that I have the skill to ride the Glentress red & black trails pretty quickly so don't see riding them quickly as a risk. I don't feel that I necessarily have the skills to ride the Golfie trails particularly quickly though, so ride them slightly slower to avoid seriously injuring myself while on my own in the middle of a lightly trafficked forest.

The danger comes when someone has less skill than they think they do, so misjudge the risk and end up knackering themselves!!

You could switch mountain biking for pretty much any activity in the analogy. The answer in all of them is training.

There is still this fight or flight reponse that is effectively out of our conscious control.

You mean like the drilled in responses to certain things happening that you get through practice.

Then you see the trail as doable, both consciously and subconsciously. I'm sure you've ridden behind riders who make the bits on the limit of your ability look easy? That's not all down to having no sense of fear (or a screw loose), a lot of it is thousands and thousands of hours of practice.

(whoever can afford to do it ‘properly’ at a younger age than that ?)

You are *exacty* the wrong person to talk about the cost of cycling.

Someone posted a link to this article recently:

https://www.climbing.com/skills/the-mind-game-how-to-overcome-fear/

It's aimed at climbers, but some of the coping strategies are equally relevant to mountain biking.

I'm usually the cautious one, worrying about the what if's. Maybe it's an age thing, I used to be much more gung ho about risk. I seem to have an inbuilt speed limit, my mind stops me going any quicker as I know 'if' something goes wrong it will go wrong very fast and it will hurt.

Still like to push myself and progress my riding, even riding things (steep and techy usually) that scare me a little. I have learnt the hard way if I drop in all stiff and jabbing at the brakes it likely won't go well. It's certainly a mind game knowing it will much more likely be successful if I have confidence in myself, keep loose, and rely on the skills I have learnt.

That's not alway easy though and it is far too easy to talk myself out of not trying something due to potential for crashing if I spend too long walking/assessing/analysing the trail or feature. I often ride better when riding things blind and just dealing with what comes (except gap jumps!).

Rode the steepest techiest trail I've even done last weekend and that was dropping in blind. I knew it was steep and tech but it was more than anticipated. Would have been easy to tense up, ride stiff, grab brakes, or just get off (actually it was too steep to get off). The biggest battle was in my head, keeping it cool, having confidence in the skills I've learnt and letting me get on with applying them.

On another day it might have gone differently, or if I'd walked the trail first I may well have talked myself out of riding it.

I 'think' I have the skills to ride the drops on GBU at FOD, but there is only one way to find out, and I'm not sure my mind game is strong enough for that yet, especially as I have looked at them too many times.

Road drop, Cwmcarn DH.

Yes, I've never really got the advice to walk sections first. If I walk something I'm much more likely to talk myself out of riding it than to talk myself into it.

My best strategy for tricky sections, perversely, seems to be to give myself permission to walk them. If I approach a section thinking I've got to ride it then I'm quite likely to refuse when I get to it. If I ride along thinking that I'm definitely going to walk that tricky bit today then I I sometimes find I just roll into it without really thinking.

It's interesting that some people seem reluctant to accept that different people respond differently to the same stimulus. Of course different people perceive the same bit of trail differently and you can change how you perceive a tricky section through practice, training etc. But I thought it was pretty well established that, faced with the same stimulus (same perceived danger) some people reacted by wanting to fight and others by wanting to flee. Maybe not though.

It's not that people are disagreeing that different people react differently to stimulus but the scenario you set out doesnt really sound like that hence the debate.

If two equally skilled riders drop into a section of trail at the limit of their riding abilities then the fighter is more likely to ride it, they don't suddenly gain great skills though, so they might clean it, they might sketch it out or they possibly have a crash.  The flighter may ride it and get spooked at how closecthey were to the edge of their control or walk it.  Your fighter possibly develops faster but also could end up stacking and setting themselves back.

I'd definitely put myself at the flight end of the spectrum on a bike, my confidence is below my skill level so I tend to back out of things I know I can/should do.  I'm aware I do it and it is frustrating at times but I rarely lose riding time.

 Your fighter possibly develops faster but also could end up stacking and setting themselves back.

Yes, that’s basically what I was getting at although I suspect it is the flighter that is more likely to crash as they are more tense/stiff.

Maybe but their crashes will be lower energy, stumble and slips rather than a yard sale, I'd suggest it's more likely they stall or have a low speed dismount.  It still sounds like you're overskilling your theoretical fighter, the fight/flight kicks in at the limit of skills so they don't necessarily have the skills they just give it a go.  They will still make errors just different to the flighter.

And the negative feedback loop you've put on the flighter isn't a given, it's you projecting an expectation onto yourself that causes this.  So you walk a section or two or crash, so what if you enjoy the ride and walk away?  It's not a fight/flight issue it's your ego getting butthurt.

Hmm, I think conversely the fighter might get through things that the flighter might panic at and cause themselves a minor crash.

However the fighter will, eventually, have a big crash from trying to ride out the worst situations where the flighter would have braked, made the immediate situation worse, maybe done a bit of tree hugging, and stopped.

I don't really think that's the situation the OP describes though, if you can stay calm and keep everything under control you're not in either situation, you're just having fun (and riding harder trails better) rising to the challenge rather than getting the fear.

FWIW if I get the fear, I give myself time, see if I can convince myself there's a way I can ride it, carefully take that line etc. I've just gone for it too many times to keep rolling and hope for the best when I see something genuinely scary!

It's an odd one, I don't think I'm quite Rider 1, but I'm not Rider 2 either.

I think what's changed is my willingness to get the wheels off the ground as I've aged and come a cropper on a few occasions...

But I can still milk a reasonable turn of speed through corners, over rough stuff and technical bits I'm not too phased by moderate drops, or little kickers with smooth/visible landings, but these days I won't go for unsighted kickers or try big, high consequence jumps/gaps, I still manage to pull away from (some) younger fitter mates going downhill.

The other thing is that now time on the bike has become a bit more infrequent, I'll tend to want to do longer rides when I can, where before I was happier to session single sections and maybe avoided climbing a bit, these days despite having poorer fitness I'd rather feel I've achieved a bit and nut up for a harder climb or two and do loops/routes rather than sessioning stuff...

Every single person ever to have ridden a bike has both sides in them. The only difference is the point at which you flip between Fight and Flight.  Experience, skill and to some degree, basic bravery (or it's close relative, basic stupidity....) move the point upwards, but everyone has their limit!