Mountain biking is a massively broad activity. Back roads and back flips. No bike does it all well.
First of all, some clarification. What do we mean by “underbiked” and “overbiked”? Aside from a few variables I’d say it’s about a judgement of a bike’s suspension travel and its weight.
An audio version of this article is available to logged in users so they can put our goods in their ears.To be “underbiked” is to be on a short travel sub-14kg bike and attempting to navigate significantly rough and/or steep terrain.
To be “overbiked” is to be a long travel over-16kg bike whilst pootling around smooth and/or shallow terrain.
Because this is cycling, everything is tainted with a tincture of sadomasochism. We admire riders who are underbiked. We mock riders who are overbiked. We prefer riders who put restrictions on themselves as opposed to riders who prefer to enable themselves. Cyclists are weird.
Furthermore, the use of the prefixes “under-” and “over-” implies some sort of baseline. Some sort of norm. I guess this is where the fabled “trail bike” is supposed to exist. I know we’re all supposed to love a good do-it-all trail bike but in my opinion, trails bikes are exactly what’s wrong with mountain biking…
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Mostly neither as I select the “right" bike for the route. If anything I’m more likely to enjoy being underbiked as that brings a bit more of a challenge without the requirement for excess speed/risk.
I only have one bike and I’m probably overbiked a fair bit and only really feel underbiked on pretty serious downhill stuff. It can be a bit of slog at times especially on flattish undulating stuff but I don’t mind.
I am about right I think.
I don’t ride such steep stuff anymore. I have never been a big jumper. My skills and bottle is the limiting factor on how fast I go on rough stuff – always has been.
A modern 29er, on modern 2.4 tyres, with decent damping is all the shizzles and basically means my 130/120mm bike is equivalent of older 150/160mm bike IMO from a capability point of view.
I ride local natural stuff and some trail centres, so Orange Stage Evo is just what I need.
“To be “underbiked” is to be on a short travel sub-14kg bike and attempting to navigate significantly rough and/or steep terrain.
To be “overbiked” is to be a long travel over-16kg bike whilst pootling around smooth and/or shallow terrain."
So is the point of this, that everyone should ride a bike that weights between 14.0 & 16.0 Kg?
The wombles of Wimbledon were underbiked overbiked.
But they were at least wombling free
Definitely overbiked with seven of the effing things in the garage + two tandems + four motorbikes, God know why as I can only ride one at a time.
Edit – by this measure I suspect I’m underwifed though.
I used to be overbiked but ‘ve gone back to an xc bike (chisel fs 110/130mm) as anything else feels too slow compared to the emtb.
It doesn’t make a huge difference though, on group rides theres everything from rigid singlespeeds to 170mm enduro bikes and everyone rides the same stuff at a similar pace.
If it’s not too much climbing then I’m on the 26″-single-speed-rigid-no-dropper.
It (or rather I) can cope with the FoD stuff and a fair bit of natural Cotswold stuff, but for the big hills I need gears, so the Ti456 comes out.
When I look around at others, I feel under biked even on the 456, but when no one else is around then either bike is perfect for that moment, so I guess I’m in the ‘don’t care’ camp.
I should add that although I ride the trails, it ain’t quick, but it is fun.
Stopped caring about it awhile ago . . . just happy to be “biked."
I just ride my beady. That way I’m both under and over biked at the same time.
Think I’ve finally got it about spot on with a 120mm XC FS, 150mm trail bike and 130mm HT?
The trail bike can cope with everything I have the skill to throw at it and the XC is as quick as my old gravel bike at the other end of the scale. At the XC’s limit the trail is also capable so they overlap well. HT fits somewhere in the middle.
I happily have just the one bike, it is perfect for most of what I ride, but I might sometimes be over biked, sometimes under biked, but always happy to just be on the bike (and even happier at service intervals to have just one).
James
I dont know if Im under or overbiked. I just pick one of the 2 options I have and go ride it.
I only have older bikes, non of which have more than 100mm. I guess I might be under biked but I don’t really care.
Underbiked on my folding commuter.
Homeostatic on the FS.
Unless you are on a 100% fire road gravel ride, or doing lift served downhill; at some point on the ride you will be either under or over biked.
All depends on where your skills and interests lie. Just like the fabled one bike to do it all – you need to define what you want, and your answer will be different to everyone else’s.
Because I can only afford 2 bikes I’ve just got a 140mm full suss and a 140mm hardtail. As others have said, that means in the UK you can be over or under biked but I find that kind of capability gives a broad spread. I’ve ridden bike parks on the full suss and it’s been good – obviously a bigger bike would be better there but not to the point it’s worth owning a 170mm bike for the number of park days I do. I’ve done 25 plus miles xc rides on the hardtail and it was good – obviously an xc bike would be better there, but I’m not racing so it doesn’t matter. Everything else falls in the middle and my two are great at that!
Think I’ve got the sweet spot personally. 150/140mm trail full suss (privateer 141) and a Ragley Bigwig with 150 forks is spot on the local Calderdale tech with the odd enduro/bike park/Scotland trip thrown in. Though TBH it doesn’t matter just ride what you want!
I have a 140mm hardtail and a 160mm full suss that cover most of my needs. The full suss gets is ok for occasional races and bike parks, though for the latter you could argue that a DH bike would be better, though I’m not bothered because it wouldn’t be good value. The hardtail gets most use for trails. Mostly I run fast rolling tyres on that in summer, but I do have a second wheelset with chunkier tyres I can swap in if needed, which is cheaper than having another bike, plus we’re short on space for any more bikes.
1 bike Ton now.
full rigid touring bike, fitted with 50mm tyres and 3 x 9.
perfect for 99% of the time.
but eyeing a new fatbike up at present.
Stopped caring what anyone else thinks a long time ago…
That said, a 150/160mm travel eBike is the right bike for about 90% of my riding these days…
Did feel a little undergunned on a couple of particularly rocky trails today for the first time in a while, but not likely to be riding there again any time soon, so certainly not worth considering a bigger bike for the privilege.
Yes, yes, yes.
I ride a 15.5 kg 160/140mm as my trail, enduro bike. It’s not terrible for long boring stuff and granted some faster rolling tyres would improve that. But the angles mean it would never compare with the 100mm 10kg steep ha hardtail where that is suited (gravel, tar, xc all-day rides). That bike is good for most stuff … then i find myself careening down a wet clay log shute wishing I was on the other bike.
I did always have the option of a slack 140mm hardtail and in all honesty that was probably the best all-round option for my local riding. Hmmmm…
Horses bikes for courses, innit?
I didn’t realise that my 13kg Tallboy was under biked as it doesn’t feel like it on most South Downs rides where a gravel bike is probably fine until you hit Steyning where it isn’t and the Tallboy is just right to slightly under biked. Not sure how it will cope with the Alps in September but planning to add 1 more KG worth of tyres (no, not a 3rd tyre) to get it to 14kg.
Actually, it’s been interesting watching what bikes all the teenagers Reeksy1 choose.
Mostly they have parents that don’t ride. Bigger is better obvs, so they had a tendency to get a full-on 17kg enduro rig. A couple I can think of are great riders but after dragging their Norco Range and Polygon Colossus around realised they weren’t going any faster in races than on their old bikes because most of our tracks don’t need the extra travel. They both started bringing their old bikes to training and races instead and saving the big rigs for DH races. Now they’ve upgraded the smaller bikes and are really happy with them.
I was pretty lucky, finding a lightweight EWS standard bike for Reeksy1 at a bargain price – it’s got enough travel for enduro but is light and nimble enough for pedalling too. If the seat tube was an inch shorter I’d probably steal it off him!