Overbiking

supercyril

17 pages on this?
Realman your obviously not riding enough.
When i train ( & cycling is a part of my life not the be all & end all ) the release of endorphines at the end ensures i dont give a f**k about small things like this.
Try it you may feel better for it.

The Northern Monkey

supersonic wrote:

Discourages some riders maybe. Not all.

And remember: some treat it as leisure, not sport.

I don't see it as a sport.... more of a social/leisure/gets me the feck outa the house sorta thing!

In fact.... unless you're competing/racing it can't really be a sport can it!

badly_dubbed

RealMan wrote:

Went on a nice night ride today with some mates, bit more of a training ride, but still good fun. I was the only one there with gears.. and suspension..

However, I was also the only one to ride the "stairs of death". A long flight of stairs in a local wood, really steep, quite twisty, bit slippery. Never managed it before, was quite pleased.

So there I am, riding with these 3 other guys, all on rigid single speeds, on my chameleon, fork set on 110mm, but still feeling slightly overbiked - nothing against the chameleon, I love it, but was wondering if I'd be better off with building a rigid single speed as well, for our night time training rides. Been meaning to build one for ages, but other things keep getting in the way, and I'm not rolling in it, so I haven't put a build into action yet.

Then we come across a guy one of us knew, on his new Orange 5. Lovely bike, full XT and Thomson, fox fork, very nice. Apparently it set him back a little over £2.5k. He plans on using it just for the exact same area and riding that we'd be doing that night. 140mm front and back. 27 gears.

We chatted for a bit, then went our separate ways, to carry on our rides. Didn't feel too overbiked after that.

Mate said to me, "looks like he's been reading too much mbuk". And I can't help but think a lot of people out there are overbiking to compensate for a lack of skill, or just because some magazine tells them they need it. Is it all marketing?

And this definitely isn't a "everyone should be riding HT" thing. I think its more a "how much bike is too much". Are you overbiked? Do you ever feel overbiked? And what do you think of people who are obviously overbiked?

Took a short cut the other day on my bmx, down a little trail I know. Bit rooty, bit muddy, bit rocky. Slick tyres, 20" wheels, rigid steel frame. Still enjoyed it.

i think your mate wants an orange 5

cheehee

I can't be arsed to read the whole of this thread, but I've got the jist of it.

I am overbiked, I have a Spesh Epic and for the type of riding I do it is more bike than I need. Don't get me wrong, I like it but I reckons I'll be getting rid soon.

I think a rigid 29er will suit me down to the ground................

As you were.................

bike-a-swan

the 'valid point' I believe there is in the argument is that maybe people do have a bigger bike than they need, or would make their riding enjoyable. The same for underbiking (often, I suspect, out of sheer bloody mindedness). Either way, it could be said that someone might enjoy where they're riding more on a different bike. Then again they may not, it's sometimes more enjoyable to do things on a completely unsuitable bike (my friend is going to be riding a bike he's bought for big trail centres and alps trips for local xc stuff to get fit!). It's not unreasonable to discuss what someone is riding and why. If you fancy shouting at them for it, that's too far.

I'm not going to get into an argument on this, I just think realman is getting dumped on a little unfairly here. Realman, you've perhaps come back a bit aggressively and put people off.

el loco pollo

sheepsteeth wrote:

RealMan wrote:

Because I think it discourages new riders to sticking with the sport.

so what?

Exactly sheepsteeth. Personally I don't want more people in the sport, I want less, it means the trails are less busy and there are fewer angsty teenagers on the forums. I'd love it if all bikes cost £5000, it would keep the sport elitist.

Pands

bigbenj_08 wrote:

supersonic wrote:

Discourages some riders maybe. Not all.

And remember: some treat it as leisure, not sport.

I don't see it as a sport.... more of a social/leisure/gets me the feck outa the house sorta thing!

In fact.... unless you're competing/racing it can't really be a sport can it!

^^

This

supersonic

RealMan

I think you are overbiked anyway. Well, over framed. You are what, 9 stone in your socks? Yet you have a light xc build with an anvil of a frame - why something that tough, when, let us be honest from the pics you posted, a road bike would be better.

RealMan

el loco pollo wrote:

Exactly sheepsteeth. Personally I don't want more people in the sport, I want less, it means the trails are less busy and there are fewer angsty teenagers on the forums. I'd love it if all bikes cost £5000, it would keep the sport elitist.

Stupid attitude. Please tell me you're trying to make a joke.

cheehee wrote:

I am overbiked, I have a Spesh Epic and for the type of riding I do it is more bike than I need. Don't get me wrong, I like it but I reckons I'll be getting rid soon.

I think a rigid 29er will suit me down to the ground........

See. That's what I've been talking about. Eventually people get bored of pedal bob and fork dive and having to clean and service suspension and lug strengthened wheels and frames up hills and trying to put power down with a silly slack head angle. Then they get suitably biked, and suddenly its much more enjoyable.


Thank you bike-a-swan. You would think I'd started a thread about race segregation from the replies I've been getting. Is there some unwritten law that we can't discuss things more interesting then tyre pressures, high rollers and the new range at halfords?

badly_dubbed wrote:

i think your mate wants an orange 5

Yes, but will he regret it? Most of my mates who know him and me think so.

andyrm wrote:

I've been home for about 2 hours now from a savage club ride where a group of 6 of us went off on a fast route on our own - some supertechnical bits, some big climbs, some fast descending and everything else in between...........

...........were we overbiked (in the case of the big travel bikes) or underbiked (in the case of the shorter or no travel bikes)?

Hard to say without knowing the trails, but from your brief description, it would sound like the guy with the rigid was underbiked. Which, like I said before, is a good thing if its from choice. If you drive over to the Alps for some hardcore DH, then realise you've only got the bmx in the car, that's bad. But otherwise, its all about increasing the challenge, increasing your skills, and making the bike simpler.

supersonic wrote:

RealMan

I think you are overbiked anyway. Well, over framed. You are what, 9 stone in your socks? Yet you have a light xc build with an anvil of a frame - why something that tough, when, let us be honest from the pics you posted, a road bike would be better.

54.9kg, weighed in this morning. Got the lightest frame I could get that could still give me the angles I needed to take a longer travel fork. I can get away with riding light XC gear on harder trails because I'm light and a fairly smooth rider (most of the time). The pics I've posted? There's a few of the Alps, one or two at Afan, and one at my local bmx track. Would you ride a road bike on those? Big respect there, better rider then me

supersonic

lug strengthened wheels and frames

Oh the irony.

longer travel fork

Yet you are happy to judge those with longer travel frames.

Enough is enough.