My list…with a little rant…S

1. Top end Gore-tex (fancy) jackets. Why wear some really expensive piece of clothing that IME gets caked in mud and ripped to shreds on a relatively frequent basis AND more or less can’t keep you properly dry anyway? By the time rain / mud has worked its way up you arms, down your neck and up your back, you’re soaked to the skin anyway and as for all this ‘breathable’ nonsense….don’t get me started. I’m sure some are good at keeping you dryish and warm but why do they have to be made from Mongolian yak wool that costs a fortune.
2. Helmets. As long as it’s comfy and conforms to the latest regs and doesn’t make your head look like a mushroom or make you look like a tool then the rest is superfluous…IMO!
3. The latest rucksack. They quickly get very wet and muddy so why all the fancy pantsy bells and whistles? As long as they holds all the other crap we haul up the hill and doesn’t bounce about like a monkey then it does it’s job.

I liked Henry Ford’s marketing pitch…you can have any colour you like sir, as long as it’s black!

You don’t have to buy any of it, you know?

Quality ranting, congrats

1. That’s a question of expectations. Goretex has its uses – everyday MTB wear is not one of them. Rant fail – moon on a stick clause.

2. What?

3. There’s a ‘latest thing’ in rucksacks? Why would bells and whilstles, if they exist, not work if they are muddy…?

Quality ranting, congrats

No random capitals & plenty of punctuation? That’s not a proper rant at all 🙂

why all the fancy pantsy bells and whistles?

Not sure about the bells, but the whistles are to attract attention if you get lost in the hills and have broken your leg or something.

3. The latest rucksack. They quickly get very wet and muddy so why all the fancy pantsy bells and whistles?

My Evoc has a whistle built into the chest strap clip. It’s totally rad.
Hasn’t got any bells though… bit miffed if I’m honest.. 😕

Rubber_Buccaneer – Member

Quality ranting, congrats

No random capitals & plenty of punctuation? That’s not a proper rant at all
[/quote]

In his defence, he forgot paragraphs in his rage….

Bells for riding where there is black bears (not grizzly’s, I know the joke)

Buccaneer, I was complimenting on the rant itself incoherent and pointless, just as any self respect rant should be.

I’ve just realised my rucksack actually has bells (a bear bell bought by a friend on a trip to canada) and whistles (one of the buckles) this makes me happy, my fancy pants are well and truely frou-frou

Agreed with the OP.

My kit gets muddy, gritty and occasionally torn from foliage or when i take a tumble…it also stinks on occasion when i perspire into it!….there didnt seem to be any difference in performance between expensive stuff or cheap stuff i tried so i now stick with basic stuff from Karrimor or Trespass which is quite reasonable compared to Endura, NorthFace, Rapha, TLD, Alpinestars etc etc

Dropper posts, nice to have but not essential…in the odd Enduro i’ve raced then i’ve used one as you dont want to stop and drop the saddle when on the clock but for my usual pootles i either stop before stuff i know is properly steep and drop the saddle (as much as anything to have a look down first, dont want to hit a walker coming up!) and other times i just drop my saddle at the start of the ride about an inch below optimum and ride like that, seems to be far enough out of the way for me to ride the stuff i like to ride yet high enough to allow decent pedalling when seated….

….i hate reviews that mark a bike down for not having a dropper fitted (or wide bars for that matter…and short stems while we’re on the subject), review the bike FFS and not an accessory that the owner may or may not fit afterwards!….bars, seatpost, stem etc are all personal and often changed straight away by the new owner with lots of people transferring favourite bars and other bits from one bike to another.

Elbow and knee pads….never worn them and never felt the need for them but to pick up a magazine these day you’d think the riders featured were setting off for a run down the Mega the way they all dress….full rucksack?…check, full pads?…check,multiple layers of ‘technical’ clothing flapping about all over the place?….check!….in reality the feature is often about a blast round a trail centre but nothing like pushing the idea and fueling people’s insecurities about what they MUST HAVE for a ride.

Tubeless…never had a problem with flats, get the odd one but since i came back to MTBing about 5 years ago i can count on one hand the number of punctures ive had…some WC downhill riders even use tubes, fancy that!…you could be forgiven for thinking your bike is unrideable these days if it isnt tubeless…and changing a tube is so simple, no need to even remove the tyre from the rim…just pop one side of the tyre off, put in new tube, put tyre back on and inflate….no sealant, no compressors, no tape etc etc

Hydration pack….perhaps on a really long ride but the joy of cycling for me is being out in the nice weather with shorts and T-shirt enjoying a drop of sun with the breeze on my face….i dont want to wear a rucksack in that kind of weather, a bottle cage does the job fine but apparently its not cool enough any more!

Wide bars…some additional width can be beneficial, the laws of physics and leverage see to that but if you’re short then throwing yourself forward on your bike just so you can splay your arms out onto 800mm bars and then wobble off down the trail uncomfortable and barely in control is counter productive and simply fashion led…the sweet spot for me seems to 740-760 depending on brand, ludicrously some website and magazines consider this to be narrow!

Forward geometry and the obsession now with bigger/longer bikes….its only a few years ago we were all happy riding fairly small bikes we could ‘dominate’ and move around on, the theory seemed sound…good standover height, the ability to make a real difference by shifting your weight behind the rear axle or over the front…now we’re told this is wrong, sorry chaps your bikes are crap you’ll be needing this instead…its longer in the top tube (why people want a flat backed roadie position on a MTB is a mystery to me), doesnt give you any room to move around and effectively fixes you in the centre of the bike and puts the top tube precariously close to the crown jewels….i’m not buying it…if i want a little more space on the bike i’ll buy a marginally longer stem and move my saddle back on its rails, maybe its because i ride a hardtail but i like having a lot of seatpost and having a small bike underneath me, got no interest in riding a gate.

…i’m sure i’ll think of some others while i’m at the gym!

Go go angry man…ggrrrrr…

i’m sure i’ll think of some others while i’m at the gym!

Don’t try too hard…

You’re probably better of not reading magazines 🙂

Hurrah for Deviant, especially the geometry bit 😀

Reverb, seems you have to add in non riding time whilst it goes back for warranty work

Henry Ford had another good comment, that if he asked the consumer what they wanted they would have just said a faster horse.

If you don’t like/can’t afford it, simple don’t buy it. Choice is great, it’s almost one of the few freedoms we have.

[/quote]Henry Ford also said “That Herr Hitler is a jolly nice chap”.*
Yay! I win.
*I may be paraphrasing

He is also meant to have said that thinking is the hardest thing there is, which is why so few actually do it

650b THE most pointless invention ever. Ridden a few feel just like 26ers!! Marketing spin to sell more bikes…

Marketing spin to sell more bikes…

[lestrade]
Thank god your ‘ere Mr Holmes
[lestrade/]

It took all my powers of deduction Dr Watson!!

Op rant: Not enOuGh rANdom capitAlIzatIOn and Speelin misTaks.

3/10

the bell on my rucksack really rings the trail alive.