Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 61 total)
  • Right bike for where you live
  • birdo
    Free Member

    I live in norfolk . So I can safely say this is a county that takes the mountain out of mountain biking. However we do have plenty of bridle ways and the twisty singletrack of thetford forest. I would say its the perfect place for a steel 29 er, possible rigid and SS.

    However if I lived in the highlands or the south coast I d probably pick something else. How much does you location affect your bike choice. Or do you just go for the latest shiny wonder machine that catches your eye?

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    Orange 5 Northern England …apparently it has the wring size wheels though

    oldgit
    Free Member

    Very much so. Chilterns. Slightly race orientated full sussers or hardtails seem to fit the bill.
    Of course you could manage on a CX or find places to ride your big bouncer, but the geography would say XC

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    makecoldplayhistory
    Free Member

    I don’t know… the area I began riding (S. Devon) had it all. Foresty ST, Dartmoor, disused railway paths / smooth bridleways, jump spots, seaside towns with street furniture almost tailor made for trials.

    I guess location did influence me as I believe gears are good (strong headwinds up big open hills), hardtails make sense in sandstone areas and where only half the trials ‘need’ full sus. A lack of trail centres meant jumping and other bigger, man made stuff didn’t exist. So, yeah, a med travel hardtail with lots of gears and 26″ wheels for zipping through trees is perfect.

    With so much upping and downing, most bikes you see are XC’ish. Not too much travel and efficient at covering long distances.

    patriotpro
    Free Member

    I bought a trail bike as I prefer to ride trail-centres and travelling to ride stuff to justify the bike rather than the other way around.

    I wouldn’t say a rigid ss would be best suited to my local area, the bike I have is overkill for sure.

    monkeysfeet
    Free Member

    North wales ..wet 99.9% (wetness just varies from appalling to mildly moist) of the year so for winter I have a hubbed hardtail, for everything else SC Nickel, Alps/Snowdon/LLandegla/Clwydians/Local stuff…

    bland
    Full Member

    Riders in the peaks tend to use steel chainrings! Well the ones I ride with do!

    bikebouy
    Free Member

    Yup, buy a bike for the trails that you ride most frequently.

    Here, South Downs rolling singletrack, some lumps, some forests, some coastline.

    SS29er.

    seadog101
    Full Member

    Northern Pennines – my Ghost 6000 ltd, hard tail and only 100mm up front, good for weight, but not ideal for lumpy moorland tracks. I persevere, and enjoy it when I’m honking a long farm track up a hill.

    bol
    Full Member

    I live in norfolk . So I can safely say this is a county that takes the mountain out of mountain biking. However we do have plenty of bridle ways and the twisty singletrack of thetford forest. I would say its the perfect place for a steel 29 er, possible rigid and SS.

    You can find some reasonable hills in Norfolk if you look for them. North Norfolk coast and Backton spring to mind. But yes, a 29er hardtail is pretty much perfect.

    fatsimonmk2
    Free Member

    north east Essex some hills short and sharp and lots of wooded singletrack so tend to see lots of hardtails and shortish travel fs but not many 29ers yet!!

    me I run 100mm travel hardtail but going to upgrade to trail fs very shortly

    mattjg
    Free Member

    Very much.

    Surrey Hills: 29er hard tails in my crew, sometimes rigids, some singlespeeds. Oh and 1 650b. 26ers are in the minority.

    agentdagnamit
    Free Member

    Something fitted with an immobiliser, proximity alarm, and a gps tracker.

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    Derbyshire here, so lots of short but steep hills, a huge variety of terrain, Peaks on the doorstep, Cannock Chase 40 mins away, less than an hour to North Wales (if traffic is kind and you don’t mind driving at naughty speeds), so I’m covering all my bases with a 140mm full suss AM 29er. It does all those jobs brilliantly.

    ontor
    Free Member

    Haldon forest & lustleigh – long travel hardtail singlespeed.

    Dartmoor – rigid, hub gear and BIG tyres

    weeksy
    Full Member

    West Berks,ridgeway territory and swinley forest, I have a 29er spearfish, ideal for the riding I have

    stevomcd
    Free Member

    Orange Alpine 160. The Alps. 😉

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Chilterns / Swinely /northern fringes of Surrey and Hampshire so and XC race styled FS would be quickest, so what do I have? A Pitch*!

    *and a cheep SS rigid steel 29er which gets about 5x more use

    garage-dweller
    Full Member

    Hampshire, sussex, wiltshire and dorset

    Trail riding best suited to something light and fast. I have a late 90’s racy hardtail tahts good for this. Geared or ss but my considerably heavier, 140mm forked 456 is every bit as good although the fork rarely hits the stoppers other than on out of area trips. Used to ride a 5inch fs bike round here. It just wasnt as much fun on the more flowing non rocky terrain I normally ride.

    If I lived in the peaks or s. Wales there is a good chance I would be having something slacker of the fs variety.

    Brother_Will
    Free Member

    Peterborough, edge of the fens so pretty flat. I spend my time between my rigid 29er single speed and a my carbon forked 29er 1×9 scandal (to emphasise how flat it is the scandal runs a 38t up front!)

    br
    Free Member

    It’s less about where you live and more about what you like to ride.

    Within a 15 mile radius of my house I have everything from field bridleways, miles upon miles of singletrack, two trail centres, (almost) world cup DH, vast distances of open moorland and forest and everything else in-between.

    I ride a 456Ti, but if I was buying now, it’d be a slack 29er HT – as based upon the guys that now run ’em, it’d suit me and my riding better. But it’d have to be light, as we’ve a lot of long (and steep) hills.

    Cheezpleez
    Full Member

    Conditions make a big difference for me here in the Surrey hills. I ride rigid SS in the winter and the wet and longish travel hardtail in the dry.

    buzz-lightyear
    Free Member

    It’s so varied here (mendip) pretty much anything that pedals ok, works. You could do a lot worse than ride an LT HT. But if you day trip away, so much more is available where FS is helpful.

    andrewh
    Free Member

    South Lincolnshire, Scott Plasma 🙁
    A lot of travelling is requireed to go anywhere which justifies use of an MTB, I feel horrendously overbiked on a rigid SS.
    used to live in Fife, near Lomonds and Breas of Angus and Ochills, my Marin AT got a lot more use there

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Definitely ride the bike to suit where you ride, that of course gives you permission to buy other bikes for when you ride elsewhere !

    amodicumofgnar
    Full Member

    British steel 120mm hardtail. Worked fine as only bike for mainly riding the peak, the north pennines, the dales, lakes, sherwood and the flat lands, trail centers, scotland…

    I run out of fitness, talent or bottle before bike. Some weight shedding and stem tweaking wouldnt go a miss.

    Teetosugars
    Free Member

    Yup, moved next to Delamere, and after a couple of rides around, bought a Singlespeed.

    rogerthecat
    Free Member

    Peaks here – currently a full suss Singlespeed, soon to be paired with a fully rigid Singlespeed – they are both bikes and go up and down hills – job’s a good ‘un.

    woodlikesbeer
    Free Member

    Lowestoft. Norfolk/Suffolk border. Soul. Never tried 29″ so don’t know if that might be better.

    chiefgrooveguru
    Full Member

    It’s less about where you live and more about what you like to ride.

    And how you like to ride it.

    jonwe
    Free Member

    Chilterns. Ss Brit steel hardtail rigid fork + ti hardtail. On my own i prefer the ss, with the gang I need the hardtail to keep up on the flats.

    PJM1974
    Free Member

    Depends…My local riding isn’t bad at all so I’ve got all bases covered – a steel hardtail on Pikes, a 120mm full suss and a 160mm AM bike.

    I tend to rotate between all three, I’ve timed the rides and there’s nothing in it so its down to personal preference as to which one I want to ride the most.

    cookeaa
    Full Member

    West Berkshire, chilterns, swinley now and then.

    Geared 456 with 4″ fork and a dropper. And a 26″ rigid SS for when its wet. About the right bikes IMO… But then there’s the DH bike and jump bike and Bmx. Not so appropriate and hence used less.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Mine are influenced by my locals but they seem to work everywhere… I guess we have pretty varied riding!

    cr500dom
    Free Member

    Long travel HT with adjustable fork for me, because that’s just what I like riding.

    I have recently switched to a Ti Frame though and went from coil u-turn Lyriks to DP Air Revelations last year in a bid to lose some weight.

    I ride Thetford / Norfolk mainly and I am nowhere near as quick as the local XC Whippets, but I prefer the downs to the ups.
    The group I ride with tend to hammer the technical stuff and cruise the fire roads and climbs to recover.

    I would like to try a proper light rigid 29er, either SS or 1×9 just to see what the difference is though.

    grum
    Free Member

    I bought the one I thought looked cool that got good reviews and was relatively cheap (Spesh Pitch). Turns out it’s reasonably well suited to where I mostly ride: Lakes (now), Scotland (sometimes), Calderdale (soon to be local).

    Ecky-Thump
    Free Member

    Lakes/Calderdale/Peaks = Orange 5 (and yes that’s 26″ please)
    or Alpine 160 if you insist on riding something “different”

    VanHalen
    Full Member

    trails around brighton – 4″ full suss.

    short light but burly enough for the odd fun bit available. soft enough to take the edge off on all-dayers.

    andyrm
    Free Member

    Bristol: 180mm adjustable travel AM bike. Probably a lot of bike for the well known trails, but for the unknown ones it’s a different story, and of course, it’s been set up for a ton of other places further afield….. 🙂

    Pridds
    Full Member

    Live in the lakes and have just got myself a carbon nomad. Can’t wait to get out on it.

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 61 total)

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