I am kind of torn after switching my MTB recently.

I was using my old faithful 15-20yr old hardtail for a long time and was planning on replacing it with a newer hardtail, but then I came across a 2nd hand Pivot Switchblade kitted out with XX1 and Onyx Racing hubs and ended up taking the plunge with that instead.

It’s a nice bike which feels composed and fast when tackling technical stuff which can be fun. But at other times it is making some parts of the trail so much easier than it was before that I don’t have as much of a feeling of accomplishment.

Have you ever had the feeling that you are riding too much bike?

On dull uninspiring trails sometimes 😉
I just got back to the interesting ones.

But in your case the difference of 20 years MTB tech will certainly make a difference, perhaps you need to catch up with the bike a little more to get the most out of it. (Upgrade the rider as it were with some coaching)

I was in the same situation having just retired my ’98 Kona Hei Hei and bought a Stanton Slackline. To be honest, I’m glad I stuck with a hard tail as the multitude of modern changes I’m re-adjusting to are enough to be getting on with.
Like yourself I found a modern bike made previously challenging terrain significantly easier; the solution, go faster (not being snarky or glib, I’ve just found that the new bike is so much more capable I’ve had to learn to push it harder).

The solution is to ride faster and be a bit more aggressive I’ve found. My newest bike is very competent and quite a lot of bike – for riding ashton Court and Leigh Woods its way more than I need (and on some of the trails it’s probably a little slower than my last bike as it’s heavier and less nimble), but when I go to Cwmcarn and bike park Wales it’s amazing. Would prefer to be slightly overbiked on the boring trails than be underbiked on the best trails I ride.

Better to be overbiked than underbiked. You’re only as good as the weakest link in the system so do you want that to be you or the bike. Personally I like the weakest link to be me.

I don’t subscribe to the ‘less travel = more fun’ brigade. Depends what you ride of course, but I like having suspension – it can help turn an otherwise dull trail into something a bit more exciting – like clattering through the bumpier line, using the suspension to pop off small features and get a bit more air time, and hitting more severe features more quickly (yes….speed is fun, especially speed over bumpy terrain), and at the end of the day I’m no spring chicken, so after a few hours on gnarly trails getting off the bike and not feeling like I’ve done ten rounds with Mike Tyson is always a bonus – live to ride another day, less fatigued, less risk of injury’s etc. It’s about fun, I’m not looking for the ‘Ultimate and most extreme human challenge’. I want to get off the bike with a big grin on my face.

wobbliscott – Member
Better to be overbiked than underbiked

But there is also a lot of fun to be had on a totally inappropriate bike IME too.

The solution is to ride faster and be a bit more aggressive I’ve found.

So you’re not having any more fun than you were on the older bike but now the consequences of the inevitable crash are likely to be much worse 🙂

If it’s pure adrenaline you want, try riding down the side of a mountain on a rigid 29er with drops, cable brakes and too much air in the tires. Less bike = more extreme.

Better to be overbiked than underbiked. You’re only as good as the weakest link in the system so do you want that to be you or the bike. Personally I like the weakest link to be me.

There’s a school of thought (it’s a small school – think i’m the only pupil 😀 ) that believes the opposite. The weak link becomes stronger if forced to learn, and you’ll learn more about riding a bike by being on a less capable one. I’m not talking rigid HT for DH type extremes here btw. But if given a choice of two similarly capable FS bikes, say 120 or 140 travel , or 140 -160 i’ve always went with the lesser. Has the added bonus of being better suited to the tamer stuff. Speaking of which, time to get suited 8)

Have you ever had the feeling that you are riding too much bike?

Yes, I had a bit of that on my old Pivot which was a quite excellent trail bike. In the end I did quite an extreme swap for a much more pure XC bike (SC TB 29er) and I’ve never regretted it. The SC needs more work on the rough descents, but there’s no question that you feel the accomplishment when you get to the bottom intact. It’s also a better climber and much, much faster on the less technical stuff.

For me, I love riding it and I don’t regret the swap.

The danger of the bike being the weakest link is that if you find yourself in a situation where your ego is writing cheques your body or skill level can’t cash, then you’re screwed. A couple of times I have found myself going into something too hot and over extending my ability and being overbiked has saved my bacon, so I survive to live another day instead of having a horrible crash, clean out my underpants then go to the top of the hill and have another go until I get it right.

However this assumes that everyone want’s to progress and push themselves, and enjoy the adrenaline rush of a close escape. Some might not and might just want to go out on their bike and enjoy the great outdoors and have a jolly nice ride, then of course all this is not relevant.

I don’t subscribe to the ‘less travel = more fun’ brigade. Depends what you ride of course, but I like having suspension – it can help turn an otherwise dull trail into something a bit more exciting – like clattering through the bumpier line, using the suspension to pop off small features and get a bit more air time, and hitting more severe features more quickly (yes….speed is fun, especially speed over bumpy terrain), and at the end of the day I’m no spring chicken, so after a few hours on gnarly trails getting off the bike and not feeling like I’ve done ten rounds with Mike Tyson is always a bonus – live to ride another day, less fatigued, less risk of injury’s etc. It’s about fun, I’m not looking for the ‘Ultimate and most extreme human challenge’. I want to get off the bike with a big grin on my face.

this.

Don’t really get how more actually helps.

Jumping – jumping is harder with more suspension, harder to control and more likely to go wrong – though the extra travel and stability can mean you can blag more when you inevitably come back down, but at the end of the day you are more likely to go wrong in the first place.

Technical – more bike, harder to tell it what to do and sense what it is doing, much more “it’s just going to do it’s own thing unless you really tell it”

Steep – long travel soft fork, jabbing at those really powerful brakes, big shifts in geometry, pitching over the bars – recipe for disaster, no?

Rough stuff – you need to be going a certain speed for the rough stuff to work, maybe better for riding rough, flat stuff tentatively.

I really don’t think the average MTB punter is realistic with themselves over what they actually ride, hence buy stupid bikes.

Better to be overbiked than underbiked. You’re only as good as the weakest link in the system so do you want that to be you or the bike. Personally I like the weakest link to be me.

I don’t subscribe to the ‘less travel = more fun’ brigade. Depends what you ride of course, but I like having suspension – it can help turn an otherwise dull trail into something a bit more exciting – like clattering through the bumpier line, using the suspension to pop off small features and get a bit more air time, and hitting more severe features more quickly (yes….speed is fun, especially speed over bumpy terrain), and at the end of the day I’m no spring chicken, so after a few hours on gnarly trails getting off the bike and not feeling like I’ve done ten rounds with Mike Tyson is always a bonus – live to ride another day, less fatigued, less risk of injury’s etc. It’s about fun, I’m not looking for the ‘Ultimate and most extreme human challenge’. I want to get off the bike with a big grin on my face.

^^This. For me, fun = fast, not being bounced round and struggling to hang on. I’ve got zero interest in a purist type approach, I want to get down as fast as possible, and if that makes for compromises on climbs or boring flat bits, so be it. It doesn’t mean your local rides have to become boring as the bike copes better – you just need to go faster and spot more creative lines.

I really don’t think the average MTB punter is realistic with themselves over what they actually ride, hence buy stupid bikes.

This is very true! I absolutely include myself in that generalisation BUT I’m happy to ride a ‘stupid bike’ so… wheres the issue? I’m happy to ride a compromised bicycle and I’m not searching for the ultimate do it all (newsflash- its a marketing fallacy). I don’t personally want a jack of all trades ride. I want a tool to enhance the parts of the rides I look forward to- the descents. My next bike will be a downhill bike again. Does that make any sense? no. Will i smile when i go into my garage? every time.

However this assumes that everyone want’s to progress and push themselves, and enjoy the adrenaline rush of a close escape.

This, for me the idea of riding technical stuff is to push the envelope. However for me, a factor is that that with more bike this means going faster in order to reach the edge, so the consequences are worse if I bail.

I think I need to get used to rear suspension too – at first it is quite annoying how the BB drops with the rear suspension so I keep smacking the bash guard on stuff.

Too much bike probably means its too big for you

I doubt if there are many, if any “underbiked” riders here on this forum, if they have disc brakes and 100mm + of travel.
As said above, less travel equals more feedback allowing you to use your skill set to it’s full potential and lessening the chance of you getting too complacent and the inevitable fall.

I’ve always ridden hardtails but got the full suss urge a couple of years ago and bought a Trek fuel 29er. Kept it six months and then got a 29er hardtail. Different strokes for different folks. I prefer riding hardtails. No idea why, but for me they are just more fun.

I realised this after I found myself forgetting how to ride properly because I’d been on cleats for too long.

I think most of the “more = better” people here are kidding themselves and rationalising buying what’s in vogue or what helps them keep up and ‘look fast’.

If making hard trails easier is what you want, then surely you could achieve that by riding a less capable bike on just as fast but less technical terrain?

If its speed you want, why not take it a step further and just do road cycling? Even world cup DH doesn’t have a patch on alpine descents. 80kph average? Sounds ace to me!

If you like fun and jumping, why not get a BMX or a jumps bike. I mean, that would probably require actual bike control I guess.

The bikes people ride on the EWS are designed for racing. In racing, you take every advantage you can get, including ones that make up for lapses in your ability. If you are racing EWS, then get a race bike and I wish you all the kudos and luck I can. But trundling a 160mm 29er around dalby forest doesn’t ‘allow you to push yourself’, it prevents you from developing bike control, line selection, flow e.t.c.

If you really wanted to push yourself, you’d be on a bike that was just about capable of handling the terrain – ie, had correct tyres and geometry – as everything else is superfluous.

An analogy: you are in the same position as people who buy a 6kg CF aero race bike with zipp 404s to ride Sportives. The actual experience if you rode a heavier bike would be much the same, only you’d get fitter and become a better rider.

Just like my cleats, if you buy a 150mm 27.5+ running 2.8 tyres to ride ‘yeah there’s some super techy local stuff near me and sometimes I go to bike park wales – go for it, but what you want, but don’t try and suggest it’s anything else other than a crutch.

Each to their own, but I love my hardtails. I hired a full suss for 4 days on holiday once and compared with my HT it felt like I could just “point and shoot” at some of the trails. Riding the same trails on my hardtail felt more difficult but more of an achievement.

Pump everything.

There’s a lot of overbiking out there. Near enough every one of my mates pootles round the Isle of Wight bridleway network on a contraption designed for smashing your way up and down Alps. Then they buy something even gnarlier with another 30mm of travel for the two or three times a year we do a Wales trip. Then some Ultimate Behemoth for actually going to the Alps. It’s mental.

Pretty much everything we ride on a weekly basis can be tackled on a rigid bike without wallowing in too much suspension every step of the way.

I think people should just buy what they want and are going to have the most fun on for them. There is no right’ bike for everyone.

Speaking for myself I don’t enjoy hardtails much off road at all, but I can appreciate why some people love them.

Yes my 160/145 enduro bike is way more than technically needed around my local trails, but I’m happy enough riding it there because when I go on bigger days out (uplifting at BPW for example) the bike is epic. I get higher highs in that than any other bike I’ve had.

Contrary to the opinions above, I now spend far more time concentrating on line choice than I did before on less capable bikes as I’m going faster / riding more aggressively / really looking for the best lines.

When riding easier trails I’m putting more thought into pumping and railing features to keep the speed up as the bike is a bit heavier.

I do have a hardtail but I just use it for commuting in bad weather and on the local pump track.

He who has most fun wins.

Ride what you like OP – if you’re not feeling the love, swap bikes.

Matt has it. Whatever floats your boat OP

The solution is to ride faster and be a bit more aggressive

A good friend of mine posits that the trouble with this is that the consequences of getting it wrong are obviously greater than before…

Personally, I ride a bike (a 150mm full suss trail bike) that I can realistically use for most of the time. I struggle a bit when I ride with friends on the XC based climb-a-thons but I go because its my mates and we’ll still have a laugh and it’s good for my legs, and I wait at the bottom of steep hills a bit when we do more techy stuff.

It’s always a compromise, but I have space for just one bike, and I reckon I can ride pretty much everything on it from Alps to Wales to Lakes to canal towpaths, sometimes it’s massively the “Wrong Bike” but TBH it just adds to the fun.

Nick – that’s pretty much the same as me with a few mates that I rode with from time to time. I’m good with not being the fastest uphill (which I don’t find fun) to be the fastest downhill really getting a good flow.

I started riding 21years ago(as a 39yr old) on a fully rigid Gary Fisher Wahoo..and that bike was the only bike on which I’ve been a true hooligan ..it was so light that it spent as much time off the ground as on it ..fast forward through the years and I have not had too many bikes ..another Gary Fisher ( Big Sur ), Santa Cruz Nomad (10 years) and last year bought a Whyte T130RS..
The Whyte rekindled the joy of riding and made me realise that the Santa Cruz as fantastic a bike as I still think it is was a big heavy old girl with way too much suspension ..for my riding needs.
The Whyte made me want to get out and ride again at every opportunity ..which in turn helped me shed a significant amount of weight and get a good bit fitter ..
I don’t know if you can be ” overbiked ” ..but you can definitely be riding the wrong bike ..
The old girl (Nomad) was given a spruce up ..put on a diet to shed a few pounds and my 6’1″ 14 year old son with the benefit of youth / energy absolutely loves her to bits ..and is breathing down my neck both up & down hills ..as he constantly lets me know while riding 😡 😆

Had a guy in the shop intending to do the Highland 550 on an orange alpine 160 running 34×11-32, not sure if thats over biked or madness. Probably a lot of fun though so overbikedness doesn’t matter really.its the smiles that count

rocketdog, no more mad than the singlespeeders I guess?

you’re right though, it’s about the smiles.

There is certainly an interesting debate here.

Surely the one thing we can agree on is that mountain biking is mainly about having fun and some folk have a different idea of fun to others. In the fortunate position of having several bikes I have found an XC full suspension bike will get me around most trails effectively, seldom wallowing into suspension sag hell and generally keeping me awake enough to tackle most thing from the reds at Bike Park Wales, to stage races in Canada.

Hardtails also have a place be it racing XC, cruising the local trails or out backpacking, an XC hardtail can be too little bike on some trails. Sure some folk will get away with it but personally it is not for me anymore. I have previously got one down the red run at Fort William and around many of the trail centres in Scotland without mishap, but for me a full suspension option is more comfortable and quicker in almost all situations.

Longer travel full suspension bikes (Trail to Enduro) have got to be a good idea for the steeper, more technical end of the spectrum and if that is what you enjoy riding then why not get one. It will do the easier trails too – just no so fast. And there is nothing wrong with this.

So, IMHO it is possible to have a bike that has more travel than necessary for the trails you ride, most of the time an XC full suspension or hardtail bike will see you through. BUT there is nothing wrong with riding something with more travel on tamer trails. It just won’t be as quick on the climbs and may make the descents less interesting/exciting that they would be on a cyclocross bike.