You won’t use anywhere the same amount of muscles or the same intensity in the gym.
After I hurt my back the first time, it was a struggle to get on the bike. Muscles that I took for granted put pressure on places that made it horrendous to do the simplest things.
Just warning you... you may feel comfortable whilst doing it, but you will regret it.
I won't know unless I try, I'm stubborn once I set my mind on something.
That can be read as either 'you can go to the gym and ride an exercise bike there' or 'you can go to the gym OR ride a motorbike'.
Regardless, the first thing I do after recovering from a major injury would NOT be jumping on a dirt bike...
You WILL fall off, and it WILL hurt, especially if you're not fully healed up. And it'll be hard work, using muscles you've not used for ages. Focus on getting strength and fitness back before thinking about getting back on a (motor)bike.
That's the idea to get back in shape before doing anything crazy, I've been training and stretching so far.
Riding off road isn’t a great idea. I’ve been riding on the road for 15 years and never fell off yet (touch wood), I’ve done 380 miles off road in the last 2/3 months and fell off 3 times!
I had 3 offs as a rider and 2 as a passenger. First was on ice, at low speed, 2nd time I hit a diesel patch and this one was a hit and run.
Looking at the state of the road within the year it's ridiculous, I wouldn't want to hit some of those potholes on a bike... I've an offroad track 20-30 minutes away from my house, it's cheap and there's a big variety of jumps, straights and turns. I'll probably start with a 125 2T or 250 4T, I'll start low power and climb my way like I did on road bikes.
My mates told me to ditch the roads and join them, but I always enjoyed riding around twisties. Track days would get expensive really quickly, I considered all the options and trust me I had a lot of time to think about it. I'll probably fall and there's a high possibility of injury. But there's no cars, police, speed cameras, van drivers and other bs. I can just enjoy myself and think about my riding and the track without worrying that someone might pull out on me again.