Newbie advice

Kent martin

Hello

I recently purchased a rock rider 540S as my first mountain bike since I was a kid. I live the bike and it rides well as is but wondering if there is improvements to be made.

Firstly the pedals are standard very cheap plastic flats and as soon as I hit a fairly muddy trail they seemed to lose all grip. I've seen a few people mention clip ins and was wondering what is the full advantage of these beside the obvious of not having feet slipping off of them? Would I be better buying these or a better quality flat pedal?

Secondly the tyres all be it knobbly again seem very cheap and appeared to lose grip in the mud quickly. How much better are aftermarket tyres and what brands are the best to look at? For reference the wheels are 27.5"

Thanks

Martin

mattyfez

Flats or clip in are personal preference really, plenty of flats your feet can won't slip on, but the trade off is better pins, which can also be painful if you hit your shin on them, but you're less likely to slip and hit your shin in the first place.
Personally I prefer flat pedals with removable pins, some good alloy and plastic options available.

Tyres are a never ending discussion of pros and cons, riding style, type of terrain, weight, strength, rolling resistance blah blah... but tyres that come on new bikes can often be sub standard. Keeps the price of the bike down, 2x£35 tyres adds a lot to the cost of a bike.

Also a good mud tyre won't nessesarily be that great on harder surfaces.

What tyres did it come with? Even some well known tyre brands have 'lesser /cheaper' models that they supply to manufacturers to keep costs down on mass produced bikes.

Kent martin

Hey Matt cheers for ge reply

In the case of the pedals are there particular manufacturers or models that you feel are better quality?

And the tyres are b''twin own brand tyres (can't recall the name given to them off he top of my head). Generally I do wooded trails with the odd bit of hill climbing and descending and very little road riding

Martin

robertpb

It's not only your pedals that could be an issue, but also what footwear your using.

As for tyre grip, what kind of pressure are you using, too hard and you will loose traction in the mud, in the mud I'd be running low twenties front and mid twenties rear.

Kent martin

Hello Rob

I did think of this after posting regarding the footwear. I'm looking at getting myself a decent set of shoes but again this will depend on whether I buy clip ins or not.

Il be honest I do not know what the pressures are in the tyres as he bike was set up in the shop and I've ridden it as is. I will check this and adjust to see if this makes any difference

Thanks

The Rookie

Flat pedal wise, Nukeproof do a good range, none of them bad, also look at the offerings from Superstar components.

Footwear wise, you want a cycling shoe so it has a stiff sole that supports your feet, for a beginner Decathlon are a good look and often have some Shimano at decent discount.

You need to be checking tyre pressures every ride, I'd guess they are probably set at about 40-45, drop to about 30 and then drop a couple of psi each ride to find your sweet spot trading rolling resistance and responsiveness for grip.

lofty1267

I'm also new to the scene. Just bought a diamindback heist 1.0 2017 edition in bright green. Are these any good for entry level? I was torn between that and a Boardman. I knw the Boardman are far better but as a newbie didn't wanna spend that amount just yet .

The Rookie

The heist has some decent parts but is rather let down by the single most important component which is the fork, when bouncing around off road it needs some damping and the XCM MLO has no damping at all.

tomb57

Hi lofty, if your diamondbacks 1.0 is bright green think it might be the 2018 model , I think the 2017
1.0 was only in light blue, just done 300 miles on my 2017 model (got a good price ) in 2.5 months
All on trails not dh as I’m old n arthritic can see that if I was doing down hill forks would be
A problem but it depends what you are doing forest roads, the linear trails etc my heist is
Great for the 1x11 set is brilliant .