Heavy bikes or heavy butts?
Mountain biking is a great hobby, but there is far more to this sport than just riding bikes.The riding, of course, plays a fundamental part in the whole getting on your bike and peddling around the countryside experience, but the fun really comes into it when you start obsessing about the components, gadgets, technical clothing, bike transport and cleaning agents etc used before, during and after the bit when you’re actually sitting on the bike.
The area where most effort tends to be prioritised is in the components, the stuff that makes the bike work. More specifically though, it’s not just about how bling the shiny bits on your bike are, it’s about how little they weigh.
Of course, it makes complete sense that the lighter and more expensive your bike is, the faster you become and the better you are at riding. Well, of course, that’s what we’d – I’d – like to think. The reality is as a developing rider, which I am, instead of blaming my lack of fitness for not making it up the hill before the rest of my mates, I blame my equipment. Despite the carbon seat post and handlebars that adorn my stead, the obvious lack of titanium in my cassette is clearly hindering my prospects at becoming the next cross country champion.
[Note for later: remember to order new titanium cassette]
Yes, like most mountain bike and roadie enthusiasts, I too like to indulge in the competitive sideline of one-upmanship when it comes to buying the latest and lightest components, when I can afford to. I do, every now and then sit back and think about what I’m doing when spending huge sums of money in a vain attempt to shave ounces of weight off my bike.
Now, I’m no whippet when it comes to riding, in fact quite the opposite, so when I think about the time, effort and money I’ve invested to date transforming my bike into an anorexic thoroughbred, I do also spare a thought for the 18 pounds fo weight I should be shedding my overfed carcass.
I wonder though, which is more effective? Losing miniscule amounts of weight from the bike, or handfuls of fat from my body? Hmmm. It’s the bike every time. How else will I get to spend my time and money?
What are your thoughts?
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i agree totally. lose some weight you fat bugger
dont stop buying xtr though. girls like gucci, men like xtr. we fool our brains with the ‘its functional’ argument, but actually its about knowing you’ve treated yourself to the best there is. the worst thing is, once you have a super light bike you want the super burly one, etc etc and so it goes. before long you realise that your garage is full of bikes, but you love them all. buying bikes is time consuming but at the time it doesnt feel at all irnoic to spend a sunny weekend buying parts on the internet or buliding up frames. i know someone who strips his bikes to the bare frame and bulids them all up again to ‘clean them properly’. this takes weeks.
look at it this way – some of us spend more time on our bikes than in our cars or spare rooms so why not spend a bit of cash making the experience as nice as it possibly can be?
as for being a lard-arse, maybe thats just a symptom of spending too much time in bike shops
This is a subject dear to my heart, not least because I cut my mountain-biking teeth on a complete &&^%&%-heap of a bike, which I must have done up to 5000km on. I have ranted about it on my blog a few times, see early entries under The Bike category.
But suffice it to say I didn’t know anything about different parts, materials, brands, etc. etc. and still don’t know much, but my love of mountain-biking was born on the back of that sorry machine.
And I think riding a clunky, supermarket model of bike actually did great things for my fitness levels. I even entered a race with it, and was riding easily the worst and least cool bike there. And with only really aiming to finish, I came halfway down a field of 90 riders, a perfectly respectable result, I reckon.
So the two go hand in hand I reckon – by all means spend loads of money on a bike, but make sure the rider is worthy of it!