Do you have older - say 40 plus - riders? Looking for fitness rides not heavily technical.

In theory at least snake bites are easy to deal with. The pressure immobilisation technique now preferred should buy more than enough time to get proper treatment

http://www.csl.com.au/SFA.asp

That said in nearly 40 years of stumbling around Sydney bush on bikes and foot I've never seen anyone bitten by a snake.

While I am not over 40 there are a fair few that are around that age. However most of the trails I ride are not that technical. The majority of the rides you can find in the Rides section of this site are not overly technical. Many are in fact just firetrails.

As for first aid kits. I always carry one. I've only ever used it once and that was for a relatively minor sprained finger that my friend had on the trail. I've also done a first aid course in the Army so it may come in handy one day *touch wood*. Having some idea of basic first aid (CPR, fractures, bites etc) is always a good idea anyway in my opinion.

Welcome Pommy Sheila, you have come to the right place as there are plenty of Nobmob rides who don't jump and there are many local tracks that will improve your fitness without your front wheel leaving the ground.

Paul

it would be nice to add another girl to our clan!! But you know, just because some of the boys are over 40 doesn't mean they aren't legend riders ... in fact, a lot of our better riders are 40 or over - and NO! i am not going to name names, but you guys ('roid boys) all know who you are!
it's really a matter of attitude i think - as long as you have a sense of humour you'll have endless nice people to ride with!
see you when you get here!

MEEEE

ps Rob is the legend who looks after our site...

Here is another one
Looking forward to do some riding together soon!
Carolin

We poached Rob and his/this brilliant web site from the mother land for ourselves and following my phone call to imigration this afternoon he can no longer return

But we look forward to you riding with us soon.

Greg

Welcome to nobmob. I'm heading to the UK for a few months tomorrow. My name is David / Arpit. I'll probably see you on a ride eventually, but not for a while.

Riding in Aus isn't as bad as it sounds. Sure, the fauna has toxic venom, but the snakes and spiders don't tend to be as aggressive as those you might find in the USA, Africa, or India. Sure, sometimes they'll bite, but most of the time they'll hear you coming and be long gone.

Living in Manly you will have a variety of excellent trails at your doorstep! You can get a great ride in even if you only have an hour or two to spare.
If you look on the rides page, you'll see just how many trails there are on the northen beaches.

If you decide to explore further and longer rails (such as those in the further afield section) it will, as Flynny mentioned, be a smart idea to plan for contingencies and learn a bit about first aid - both for humans and for bikes. That said, its perfectly possible that the trails in the Sydney Metro region will keep you satisfied for years.

As for first aid - I'd definately advise doing a remote area first aid course, as well as some kind of map reading course.

As for the former, sometimes as mountainbikers we go into remote areas and get injured.
The virtues of a 'first aid kit' are often extolled, however the term is rather meaningless. Sure, you can buy 'first aid kits' at he post office and from st johns ambulance, but most of the stuff in there is unneccessary. Noone knows exactly what a 'first aid kit' should contain.
You aren't going to die from having a few cuts and scrapes uncovered till the end of the ride, nor are you going to get seriously injured if you don't have a splinter pick, special eyewash solution, or ten varieties of dressings.
Any good first aid course will teach you to improvise with what you have.
It's worth doing a brief risk assessment before you ride (in any country) and planning for contingencies. What you take with you depends on the sort of riding you do. For example, I don't think it would be unreasonable to carry nothing whatsoever with you for a lap around manly dam. If you were doing a two day ride, you would obviously carry quite a bit more.

I tend to do whole day rides in remote areas. Sometimes I'll be by myself, but mostly I'll be with one or two other people. The following is written to be applicable to the one day remote area rides which I favour. It's a little long, but I've been meaning to write something similar for quite a while now, and this thread provided me with an excuse Please don't think I'm patronising you - I realise that you are an experienced mountainbiker. As I said, I've been wanting to write this for a while.

I carry the following with me:
- A permanent marker (useful for writing) and some paper
- A pressure bandage. (It's useful for dislocations, bone breaks, sprains, snake bites, torn sidewalls.) (In an emergency you can even get by without one by just using your spare inner tube or shirt)
- ibuprofen
- Ventalin - Many riders have exercised induced asthma
- an emergency blanket
-energy bars
-electrolyte powder
- A thin bright orange tarp which folds to the size of an emergency blanket.
- Whistle
- A surplus of water. On long rides I carry double the water I expect I'll need. (Ie, 2 litres per hours.) I don't suggest you carry that much, but I find that carrying this amount can sometimes pay off in certain locations. (eg. on the six foot track, a significant number of runners carry only a single water bottle with them. I've met several runners on the track who have become seriously dehydrated)

These are to deal with adverse situations which either:
a. Are likely to arise
b. Have serious consequences.

In group A, we have
- people getting bruises and unable to ride properly (Ibuprofen)
- People getting hypoglycaemic / bonking (energy bars)
- people getting cramps

In group B we have
- People going into shock - emergency blanket
-Any situation which requires search and rescue - tarp, whistle
- Asthma attacks - ventalin
- Snake bites, broken bones, etc - pressure bandage.
- Everything in category A, as well as any serious mechanical failure. - Sometimes on a bike ride you can be 30km from the nearest road. You may need to spend the night in the bush if an injury results in a slow pace, if you get lost, if you have a mechanical failure. 30km takes a while to walk. If you are spending the night out, it is important to have a little shelter, hence the emergency blanket. If its raining, I can make a tent with my little tarp and my bike.

As I mentioned, I don't have a st johns first aid kit or anything like that. If I, or someone in my group gets a few cuts and scrapes, we just keep riding. That's life. Unless the wound hasn't clotted and they are losing blood, there isn't an issue. If someone gets grime in their eye, they wash it out with their water bottle. If someone does bleed profusely, I won't hunt around for a triangular bandage - I'll just use my shirt.

As mentioned, sometimes sheer distance from civilisation coupled with an unexpectedly slow pace can cause issues. It's likely that you'll need to spend a night in the bush. You can minimise the chances of this by
- Navigating properly. - Learn to use a map and a compass, and actually take the map with you!
- Travelling with people who know the area well.
- Maintaining your bike
- Knowing how to fix problems with your bike.

Most bushwalkers will take a map with them when travelling into remote areas. On a mountainbike, you can travel into equally remote areas (there are trails all around the alpine areas), but much more quickly. Thus, if your bike breaks, you are left quite far away, dressed in lycra with plastic shoes - not ideal bushwalking apparel! Thus, the above points become important. I'll elaborate:

- It's useful to know not just how to follow a route on a map, but also to locate yourself on it, using natural features. That's how you get un-lost.
- Sometimes maps aren't accurate, and thus a companion who knows the area can be invaluable.
- Getting your bike serviced regularly. (bolts tightened, spokes tensioned, suspension seals replaced) will help prevent failure. Many mountainbikers try and ride as long as possible on their rear shock before getting it serviced. However, this is inadvisable in remote areas. If the seals blow on an air shock, your bike will probably be unrideable.
- Knowing how to fix problems, and carryint he tools to do so are very important. Mechanicals are common. On remote rides, I carry-
-Tube
-Pump
-Puncture repair kit
-Multi-tool with a chain breaker
- Chain 'quick link'
- spare seatpost bolt
- spare derailleur hanger
- Cloth backed tape
- A crank bolt

But yeah, its nice to be prepared for likely contingencies.. Its even nicer to be mentally prepared for situations when you aren't physically prepared! After all, its all about fun - and its always great to be able to keep riding after you've gotten lost a few times, broken your chain, and had a few flats!

Back on topic again - the Nobmob guys run group rides every couple of days. Make sure you go to one at Manly Dam. People come from all over Sydney to ride at Manly!

Epping forest... I need to give it a visit! I love the muddy riding in the UK. SUre, many people hate mud, but its just so different to what we get here that its cool. When I see my back tyre slicing through 6 inch deep mud, and spinning with even moderate pedalling force, I start giggling like an idiot! I ride a slick tyred commuter bike, which makes it all the more fun

If you ever get homesick, just go and ride Red Hill. That trail alone (specifically, the drivetrain eating monsters which live in the puddles) is responsible for feeding the families of bike shop proprietors in the northern beaches.

Yeah nobmob is amazing. It is the best Australian mountainbiking site by a long way. Rob has done a great job. Some of the things you can do on here are just extraordinary. You can download maps from the rides pages into your GPS. YOu can view aerial photographs of trails. You can post and tag photographs. Wow!