Article on riding rigid.

Mental Mickey

Quite enjoyed this article, just thought I'd share it for anyone interested.

http://mountain.bike198.com/riding-rigid-suspension/

Northwind

I agree with some of the points but the actual article's pish. "If you have only ridden dual suspension bikes, you are not using your arms and legs correctly while riding" ffs. Way to take a good argument and sink it. "Over time, you become completely reliant on the suspension of the bike completely forgetting about your most important suspension component…your body.". That's right, everyone with a full suss just sits on it like a sack of spuds.

Also "Open your possibilities and start becoming a better mountain biker by bringing mountain biking back to its routes (sic)…steel rigid…"- the first aluminium mtb frames came out almost immediately after the first steel mtb frames.

But rigid bikes are a good laugh. Though, the only reason I can ride mine the way I do is using all the skills I learned on my hardtail and full suss, not the other way round!

Ryan Jones

I was following behind 2 guys singlespeeding up Cannock Chases FTD, one on a rigid Genesis and I was quite impressed how fast they were going, still I wouldn't swap my full susser for one unless it was a fitness ride

moster

I took my circa 1994 rigid Rockhopper out for a 8 mile blast on tarmac roads the other week and it was the most uncomfy experience I have ever had. I cant believe I used to ride miles & miles offroad on it...suppose I had quite a few less miles on the clock myself then though!

lvquestpaddler

Good enough article, cheers for that I agree with it fully. MTFU.

Mental Mickey

Northwind wrote:

I agree with some of the points but the actual article's pish. "If you have only ridden dual suspension bikes, you are not using your arms and legs correctly while riding" ffs.

Not sure I agree with you, I started MTB riding backwards by buying a FS bike first, it was only when I bought a HT that I actually started connecting the dots, so I think he has something of a point there.

However, it is your right to disagree.

Northwind

I agree it can happen, I just know it's nonsense to say it will happen.I know riders that have never used anything but big full sussers, sometimes it takes longer to work it out but this guy seems to be of the "full suss means you can be a passenger" school and that stops working when you ride more challenging trails.

robertpb

25 years of riding rigids and I have to agree with Northwind.

Nearly 3 years of riding a Meta 5.5, I'm well grounded on how they both ride.

CycloRos

Excellent, well balanced article and I totally agree.

Riding rigid is a great way to remind yourself that your body IS the most important suspension component.

Raymondavalon

I have a rigid. Sure I use it for commuting but it's an MTB and it's rigid
TBH I don't mind the feel of a rigid bike, I do take the occasional shortcut on it and it amost shakes my fillings out, but it's fun and it's a lot quicker off the mark than my full bouncer

One fine day I'll fit some PanaRacer FireXC Pro tyres and take it for a blast round Cannock Chase. I do see quite a few rigids there and I don't mean those pain in the @ss "ooh it's a nice day, let's take our [old crappy MTB] bikes out to Cannock" type riders either, but guys who enjoy riding rigids..

tom_howard

Wow, seems to me like the author looked at all the various cults/niches within MTBing, couldnt decide which one he fancied so picked all of them!
Joking aside, i kind of agree, riding should be varied, and mixing it up every now and then keeps it fresh but im not sure i agree with deliberatly upping the ante to please the 'i only like it because its harder than what you're doing' mob. i ride because its fun and every now and then quite the adrenaline pump, not because its beaten me within an inch on my life or scared the living shoot out of me beause the bike wasnt up to the terrain.

i can just see him now in a trail centre car park (obviously having got lost on the way to a 3 day epic across the moors, grr)
'tsk tsk, look at all these mugs with their 140mm, geared, lightweight full sussers with uppy downy seatposts riding round and round with grins on their faces. they dont know the misery im about to put myself through, no sus, 1 speed, girder framed bike with a saddle so far up my ar*e it hurts to cough, ill be loving it through gritted teeth though! bet the wont even ache for 3 days after either....'

if i fancy sitting back and letting the sus do the work, i will. its what its there for.

having now finished my rant :oops: i find myself with a dilemma. ive been invited to dalby in a few weeks with folk from work for a bit of xc mtb based team building, i have at my disposal a 45lb 9" travel dh tank, or a 14" framed dirt jump/4x hardtail (im 6'1"). oh the misery theyll all be missing out on....

lvquestpaddler

Lots of difference between them. Rigids have predicatable geometry, good for technical ascents, POP to maintain, but on bouldery descents that are fast I have ended up with blurred vision. Most setting up on a rigid relates to getting the tyre pressures right for the terrain and not gripping too tight...
The biggest problem I've seen with full suss is that most people just have no idea how suspension actually works and therefore have it set up all wrong, that's even if they've bothered trying to set it up. Preload, damping,rising rates,sag etc. How many folk can drive a car but not even do a basic service/check of their car? Same applies to bikes, and a badly set up bike is useless you'll never get the optimum performance out of it if it's pogo-ing all over the place or collapsed in the middle like a burst couch absorbing all your effort uphill.
Whenever I go to Wolftrax I tend to see a lot of "all the gear no idea" types who spend most of the day in the carpark fannying about trying to set up their bike rather than just get on and ride it. It's good for the industry though all these new must have innovations. Just like when those big boxy tv's went out of fashion and everyone bought LCD's. nice and slim but ghastly pictures. That's progress folks!

estampida

so, I used to race Xc in scotland in 1993-1995 on a ridgid, I would smoke most people with sus forks down hill (remeber they were 80mm travel in those days)

and today when I ride, if we are all on full sus its very close, go out on hardtails and they cant touch me, I tell them its because I have rode HT / ridgid for 21 yrs and 1 or two of them are starting to catch up so i'm running out of excuses

I think that full sussers get you to ride at you potential quicker, or give you a false sense of ability sometimes, but there is nowt worse than some 30's guy who has just bought the most expensive bike in the shop and has no idea how to ride you can tell who they are by:

Stupid met helmet c/w chinstrap
the peter or whatever brand but it has to carbon
dropper seat post
dressed like lycra darth vader
top end mavic or hope hoops, cos you dont want to look different now, do you

cooldad

lvquestpaddler wrote:

Whenever I go to Wolftrax I tend to see a lot of "all the gear no idea" types who spend most of the day in the carpark fannying about trying to set up their bike rather than just get on and ride it.

estampida wrote:

but there is nowt worse than some 30's guy who has just bought the most expensive bike in the shop and has no idea how to ride you can tell who they are by:

Stupid met helmet c/w chinstrap
the peter or whatever brand but it has to carbon
dropper seat post
dressed like lycra darth vader
top end mavic or hope hoops, cos you dont want to look different now, do you

Generalise much?

Anonymous

You're ALL wrong!

cat_with_no_tail

Tom Howard wrote:

Wow, seems to me like the author looked at all the various cults/niches within MTBing, couldnt decide which one he fancied so picked all of them!
Joking aside, i kind of agree, riding should be varied, and mixing it up every now and then keeps it fresh but im not sure i agree with deliberatly upping the ante to please the 'i only like it because its harder than what you're doing' mob. i ride because its fun and every now and then quite the adrenaline pump, not because its beaten me within an inch on my life or scared the living shoot out of me beause the bike wasnt up to the terrain.

i can just see him now in a trail centre car park (obviously having got lost on the way to a 3 day epic across the moors, grr)
'tsk tsk, look at all these mugs with their 140mm, geared, lightweight full sussers with uppy downy seatposts riding round and round with grins on their faces. they dont know the misery im about to put myself through, no sus, 1 speed, girder framed bike with a saddle so far up my ar*e it hurts to cough, ill be loving it through gritted teeth though! bet the wont even ache for 3 days after either....'

if i fancy sitting back and letting the sus do the work, i will. its what its there for.

having now finished my rant :oops: i find myself with a dilemma. ive been invited to dalby in a few weeks with folk from work for a bit of xc mtb based team building, i have at my disposal a 45lb 9" travel dh tank, or a 14" framed dirt jump/4x hardtail (im 6'1"). oh the misery theyll all be missing out on....

This sir..........is post of the farking week!

Good effort

lvquestpaddler

A high proportion of the time I don't generalise,and on the whole the majority may agree with this.....!

ThePriory1978

I'm average riding a hardtail.
I've never riden full sus but i'd probably still be average on that too
I do kind of relish the extra abuse i assume you get (nothing to compare it too) from the back bouncing around on bumps and ruts HT offers. I like it when at speed the bikes starts to buck around and you reach the limits of ability, fighting the bike down a hill is half the fun for me.
If financially i could afford afford one, i'd go buy a full-sus tomorrow tho, so i could go faster.

bike-a-swan

Tom Howard wrote:

i can just see him now in a trail centre car park (obviously having got lost on the way to a 3 day epic across the moors, grr)
'tsk tsk, look at all these mugs with their 140mm, geared, lightweight full sussers with uppy downy seatposts riding round and round with grins on their faces. they dont know the misery im about to put myself through, no sus, 1 speed, girder framed bike with a saddle so far up my ar*e it hurts to cough, ill be loving it through gritted teeth though! bet the wont even ache for 3 days after either....'

I ride a rigid ss through the winter (and occasionally in the summer if I'm feeling masochistic) and while freakin' hilarious that cuts a little too close to the bone for my liking! It is fun in a 'how many fillings am I likely to lose on this descent' sort of way. Wouldn't take it to a trail centre other than to see if I could though, it would almost certainly not be as fun.

tom_howard

I dont have an issue with all you rigid singlespeeders out there, i was once one of your ilk! (admittedly it was a bmx but i did commute on it!)

my issue is with people who question the credibility of someone as an mtber just because they have got the latest tech, as if they dont deserve enjoy themselves, and because they havent the same tech are in someway purer/more hardcore.

most of us here have started out on rigid or short travel hardtails, learnt to ride properly on them and our bikes have improved as technology has dictated, maybe on to full sus and marvelled at how quicky we can barrel through that tricky rock garden we used to pick our way though before. if you start in mtbing now, the technology is already there, so why restrict yourself? as someone said before its called progress, and its brilliant. were it not to exist wed all light our homes with candles.

'I think that full sussers get you to ride at you potential quicker'

are you saying this is a good thing or a bad thing? to me thats the best thing about bike tech, if you can get a bike that makes you the best rider you can be in 10 weeks rather than 10+ years and mutiple bikes, why not? cos you wont be a 'proper' mtber?

'give you a false sense of ability sometimes'

EH?? if i can do a 10 foot drop on a full sus but only a 5 foot drop on a hardtail, does that mean i only have the ability to do 5 foot drops?

Daz555

On the flip side, all roadies should learn to ride on a 10" super slack downhill monster. By riding on such a beast they will learn how to pedal smoothly and transfer power cleanly in order to avoid bounce and the loss of effiency this causes.

Any roadie who learns to ride by jumping straight onto a rock hard, super stiff, rigid race machine is kidding themselves if they think they know what they are doing.

lastwords

I have both a full susser and a rigid ss, the ss is for commuting riding in rubbish weather in summer and winter.

I like riding both the full susser is loads of fun and i take it to the peak district and trail centres. The full susser takes more cleaning and lubing after a muddy ride..

The rigid ss is fun round the local trails in the woods etc and the best thing is it takes very little maintainence saving me lots of time and money. when i ride it in the rain through mud and get it filthly i hose it down and oil the chain job done.

They both have there place and use.

Anonymous

lastwords wrote:

The rigid ss... takes very little maintainence

Oh god, not that argument again

cooldad

yeehaamcgee wrote:

lastwords wrote:

The rigid ss... takes very little maintainence

Oh god, not that argument again

True though, it's also termed 'neglect'.

Anonymous

Washing a mountain bike is cruelty though, they LIKE being dirty, they actively seek it out. Don't lower their quality of life by repeatedly cleaning them, or they'll end up doing a dignitas.

cooldad

Mine is a pussy gay bike. Washed whenever dirty, plus a spritz of Channel.

Anonymous

Is that the English channel?

cooldad

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Is that the English channel?

Local market at 99p a litre. You telling me it's fake?

Definitely says Channel 5. As worn by Kylie and other famous Neighbours.

cooldad

My rigid is filthy though.

Anonymous

cooldad wrote:

My rigid is filthy though.

Give it a rub down with some lube, followed by sandpaper. Should sort you out. Might cause some squealing though.

cee

lastwords wrote:

I
when i ride it in the rain through mud and get it filthly i hose it down and oil the chain job done.

what do you do to the full susser differently?

serious question....at best....mine gets hosed down and some lube on the chain.

more often than not....its lucky to get a chain wipe with an oily rag!