I don’t have one, should I?

I understand the roadie concept, something bit more robust, that takes mudguards and you’re happy for the road salt to attack.

But in the mtb world, I can’t see when I’d make the switch and what my Winter bike would actually be. I mainly ride Tweed Valley, trail centres and off piste. Mud and rain is a year round thing!

A hardtail might be an idea to save rear suspension bushes and bearings… but the cost of it would buy more sets of replacement bushes/bearings than I’d ever need

I’m interested in what people have as a winter mtb and your reasons for it

Well for proper repeated slop outings nothing really beats a single gear and no bouncy bits 🙂

A lot depends on your approach to maintenance though.
I ride my FS less in the winter, but I don’t mothball it or anything silly like that.

My winter MTB has 4″ tyres.

My BFe started off as a winter bike concept, eg hardtail plus durable components. Turned into a full spec bike I now ride 90% of the time so it has saved wear and tear on the FS 🙂

Yes it does make sense, simple bike you don’t fuss with too much for the winter months

I’ve had one the last two winters for local xc rides from the house. I’m just about to rebuild it with a rigid fork (the suspension fork is too knackered) but I’m in no rush as I’m riding more BMX than mtb at the moment.

Old Alu dirtjump hardtail – I don’t like long bikes and there’s nothing to warrant rear suspension locally.
knackered revs at 100mm – you don’t need decent suspension in mud
knackered brakes – don’t need good brakes to ride xc in mud
shit tyres – I quite enjoy sliding about and having to search for grip. XC s too dull otherwise
SPDs – the shoes clean up and dry out better/faster than flat pedal shoes
massive seatpost – don’t need a dropper when clipped in
QR seat collar – just incase I’m riding by my local jumps
mudguards – muckynuts type, and downtube/rear crud catchers. keeps you drier so you stay out longer.
lights fitted to bars- bike was used roughly 3 nights a week and I don’t wear a helmet
frame fit pump, tube ziptied to the frame, multi tool under the saddle.
1×8 gears with cheap 32T NW, 11-28 and old XT. stays cleaner needs less maintenance and lasts better than modern clutch mech and 10/11/12 spd.
mix of old durable reliable parts
QR wheels – less faff if you have problems
Bike gets soaped up, (warm) hosed down straight after every ride (as is my kit), dried, chain lubed and lights charged so as to be ready to ride again at a minutes notice.
Entire bikes worth about half the price of an 11speed cassette

+1 for what gwurk said

Kona Unit SS 27.5 + would be nice I think.

I did it a couple of years. alfine hub was the key thing for less maintenance and skinny mud tyres

Rigid Cannondale Trail 29. 1×11 in the summer. SS in the winter if it gets bad.

What do people with winter bikes do in the summer when it’s wet and muddy 😆

Always seemed a bit weird to me so never got it either.

If the question involves having another bike then the answer is always yes.

I think you have to take into account where people live.If I lived near the Golfie/Inners etc I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be grabbing my hardtail (Slackline) I’d be grabbing my Capra .
For me ,where I live in South East winter riding can be heavy going and a slog, overall trail speeds slow to the point there is no payback value in riding a big travel bike-just to cover it in mud and then jetwash it 3/4 times a week. Most peeps go into hibernation and the local trails fall quiet or they drive miles to ride hardpacked trail centers at the weekends.Winter hasn’t started here yet this year though as we have been blessed with a dry Autumn/Start to Winter 😀

My winter bike’s a 26’er Orange P7 hardtail. My main bike’s an Orange 4.

Up until I knackered my back, the P7 was my main bike for winter night riding. It’s easier to maintain, I don’t wince at every stroke of the pedal when grinding through winter gloop, and crucially, it has bottle cage mounts for my hipflask. A vitally important bit of kit when winter night riding. Solo, it gives me the Dutch courage to face the Things In The Night. On group rides, it gives me a remarkable performance boost. I can’t really explain it, but all I know is that when I’m out with a group of riders on my P7, and I’ve got a hipflask full of single malt displayed on my bike, all of a sudden I find myself riding in the middle of the pack, rather than tailing off the end as I would on my full susser.

Essentially though, if the weather and ground conditions are good, I’ll bring out the expensive full susser. If it’s minging out, and my back can cope with it, the old P7 comes out to play.

I don’t have a winter bike, but I do end up riding my hardtail a bit more, as it’s easier to neglect.

I have an old 26″ Mmmbop kitted out with full – extended – Mudhuggers front and rear and a bloody great downtube Crudcatcher-type thing, It runs 1×10, has a coil Sektor up front and rides fine. It’s a bad conditions-friendly bike because you can ride through axle-deep puddles and water splashes without getting a wet arse and covering everything above the knee in gritty, wet, Peak District sludge. It’s uncanny – no muddy face, clear jacket, clean, dry backside, it’s ace.

It’s easy to maintain, but mostly I just like the reduction in filth. I could, I guess, stick the guards on a nicer bike, but they’re pig ugly and a hassle to fit and remove. I take it out in summer if the weather’s crap as well. It’s more a foul condtions bike than a winter one and it works for me because what I really hate about bad condition riding isn’t the riding, it’s the peeling off soaked, gritty kit afterwards and hours spent sat on a wet chamois.

I suppose I would say that my “main” bike is a Liteville 301 and so my “winter” bike is my Ti Hummingbird singlespeed.
However, I probably ride the Hummingbird 75% of the time anyway and on the Isle of Man the distinction between summer and winter is usually pretty blurred, to say the least.
But the Hummingbird is a great winter bike.

Winter and summer conditions can be similar round my way if it’s a wet summer. It’s just winter is colder. Makes crap all difference with bike choice. Mountain bikes are intended to get dirty. I see no point in hiding the shiny clean posh fun bike because you may have to clean it after.

That said, if one bike has just been cleaned and it’s filthy out there I might take another that’s already mucky, but that can be any time of the year. Unless I really want to ride the clean bike, then I’ll ride it.

I bought a cheap’ish hardtail for winter & general training duties, saves the rear bearings & fancy drivetrain on my XC (only) FS from getting a hammering when I CBA’d cleaning it in the dark /cold after a ride.

Granted it’s not quite a mishmash of knackered parts like gwurk’s, but the whole thing cost less than the forks on my XC FS.

Not cleaning it so much is probably better on the bearings than over cleaning too 😉

As Santa Cruz say – “Stop washing your bike so much … It’s a mountain bike. You can get dirt on it. It’s OK.”

https://www.santacruzbicycles.com/en-GB/news/347

Anything cheap that you don’t mind destroying in the mud.
Currently for me that’s a Charge Cooker SS.
Didn’t bother with mudguards last year, but have a set lying around that i’ll fit when I get around to it this year.

I have a hardtail but mostly ride it in summer when the local woods are less of a slopfest.

In winter I ride more of the rockier trails on a full suspension.

What do people with winter bikes do in the summer when it’s wet and muddy

Have you considered that those people might be smart enough to realise that “winter bike” is just a convenient phrase and that they can use whatever bike best suits the conditions at any given time? 😉

wicki – Member
+1 for what gwurk said

apart from:

and I don’t wear a helmet

🙂

As Santa Cruz say – “Stop washing your bike so much … It’s a mountain bike. You can get dirt on it. It’s OK.”

Yeah, santa cruz, that bike company in the well known mud pit of California.

It’s just an excuse to buy another bike, don’t question it, you’ll spoil it for everyone.

I suppose my fatbike is my winter bike, it’s just that I ride it all summer too. But I’ve got a very tarty #1 bike that I don’t worry about taking out in the mud either, that’s what it’s for.

Seems like the reason I’ve not found the need is the trails I ride. I tend to avoid the slop but not everyone has that option.

It’s just an excuse to buy another bike, don’t question it, you’ll spoil it for everyone.

Going along those lines, I’ve been eyeing up the Sonder Frontier frameset, but the Boost spacing means a new wheelset with a weird rear QR.

+1 to gwurk apart from the bit about not needing a dropper if you are clipped in. Dunno what that’s about 😕

We’re on the edge of the Dales so there’s quite a few tracks and trails that are fairly weather proof*, especially those on limestone. South to the Pennine moors that are peat overlying gritstone and it’s a different matter, slop city!

* deep snow and sheet ice are exceptions.

I bought a 4.8″ wide tyres fat bike for winter, oh and summer, autumn, spring … although i will confess to changing the tyres for summer or winter.

I think it comes down to if you need an excuse for more toys, your own personal style of riding (the stuff you actually do not think you do) and budget too.

I don’t think you do but then I probably have the wrong bike according to many, but it puts a smile on my face so I don’t care

Time for coffee … and cake

James

26 inch wheeled steel singlespeed, here.
Converted to SS when I bought my 29er, so no massive cost involved.

My winter MTB has 4″ tyres.

Isn’t that a roller skate?

Summer mud and winter mud are different animals, the winter stuff saps the life from you while you freeze, so any help (so no effort being wasted in moving suspension parts) is good in my book.. I have a Winter HT.

My Yeti ArcC is now a pretty well set up winter bike – though it does need some winter tyres! Plus, it is a damn fast summer bike and can swap back on the sus forks come spring.

It works well for the South Downs slop

~30mins riding in some gravel slop on Weds at Shearwater caked my Wazoo in mud, but it also got in the drivetrain a little, will need a degrease and relube this weekend.

Until Cube finally re-release their Attain Disc Guards, I doubt the road bike will see much action until 2018.

I mainly ride my hardtail in winter due to there being less things to break but it isn’t a winter bike as such. The riding I tend to do in winter tends to suit it more and it’s easier to fit mudguards to it.

local mud not only wears stuff out but will pull a derailler through the gears easily.

Proper winter bikes round here are rigid, SS, with mud tyres. When i rode MTB week in, week out we all ran this. Don;t get out so much so it;s less important.

I understand the roadie concept, something bit more robust, that takes mudguards and you’re happy for the road salt to attack.

But in the mtb world, I can’t see when I’d make the switch and what my Winter bike would actually be. I mainly ride Tweed Valley, trail centres and off piste. Mud and rain is a year round thing!

A hardtail might be an idea to save rear suspension bushes and bearings… but the cost of it would buy more sets of replacement bushes/bearings than I’d ever need

It’s exactly the same as on the road. You save your nice lightweight Dura Ace equipped bike with fragile tyres for summer club-runs. And dig out the Tiagra equipped winter bike adorned in all the cast-offs of your other bikes.

If I had a nice bike (XTR, lots of pivots etc) then I’d probably not want to destroy it’s moving parts on mid week winter night rides where speed isn’t about the bike. It also depends how nice your ‘summer’ bike is and how muddy your winter is. If you have access to trail centers you probably have less need for a winter bike, ditto if your main bike is more functional (SLX/GX etc) then there’s not much a winter bike will save you.

I also tend to crash a lot more on local stuff because the roots round here are lethal, so it helps not having unnecessary crap hanging off the bike (like gears), whereas I can’t actually remember my last trail center crash.

There’s also the fact that some bikes just don’t deal with mud very well, if you’ve got a FS bike with barely clearance for 2.35 tyres in summer it’ll not be much good in winter!

What do people with winter bikes do in the summer when it’s wet and muddy

Same as I do when it’s dry and dusty, ride a rigid singlespeed fat bike.

I first got a ‘winter’ bike because at the time nice bikes lived in the house, so had to be clean and I was sick of cleaning at 11pm in the dark and cold after a night ride twice a week. Cobbled together a rigid singlespeed from old/cheap/SH parts that I was happy to leave in the garage.

Then I got used to not having to clean the bike, then I got to like the rigid singlespeed. When the old one got nicked, despite the need for it probably being less, I replaced it with something a bit nicer. Book value on the bike was a lot higher than I was expecting, hurrah for RRP vs sale prices.

Now I just ride what I feel like. Definitely ride the SS more in winter and on almost all night rides once it’s properly muddy though.

+1 to gwurk apart from the bit about not needing a dropper if you are clipped in. Dunno what that’s about

Ok. Let me try to explain. With flats you *need* to squat/drop down lower to preload the bike, you *need* to get behind your pedals (dropped heels) more to keep your feet in control and all your hip controlled directional changes require loading the pedals (ie. squatting). This is exentuated by my choice of not ever using a sticky soled shoe or particularly grippy pedals (I just happen to like to move my feet all over the pedals and occasionally the crank arms). you also tend to ride flats with your leading pedal higher than the trailing one.
I don’t *need* a dropper to control my bike in the air or off the sort of drops I encounter on local rides or even down super steep stuff when my feet are mechanically connected to the pedals. This alone allows you to control the bike while remaining in a tall stance (straighter arms and legs than with flats) and with properly level pedal position so means I don’t *need* a dropper for XC riding. infact. I find it more fun/enjoyable having to ride properly committed clipped in with saddle at full height. like I said. XC is kinda dull on the whole.

The one time I do miss a dropper is for manualling. But no dropper puts your saddle anywhere near out the way enough for my liking when it comes to manuals. My slammed saddle height is 250mm+ lower than my fully extended XC saddle height. and there’s a QR fitted for this very reason.

BTW. Lycra also gives you much more room to move around a bike and less need for a dropper. and it just so happens to be far more suitable clothing for riding in wet manky conditions.

A dropper simply lets you get the seat out of the way and move the bike about. Clipped or not. Of course you don’t *need* one. But they are nice to have, when they work.

Handy if your winter bike can do something else in the summer. I have a Salsa El Mariarchi setup singlespeed in winter with 29 mud tyres, that then gains a 29+ front and 27+ rear wheel to become the best fun off road touring bike I can think of when the trails dry out. With full cable outers I can even add gears in under 10 mins if going somewhere hilly and/or with luggage in the warmer months

I’m quite new to the single ring thing but it’s great for winter bikes.
Easy to clean and there’s no mech to act as a mud bunger upper.