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.
"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?
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!
