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If you mean charging blindly down trails without thinking of the consequences and expecting my bike to miraculously save me, then the answer is not at all.
On new trails which are blind, my bike is always cashing cheques for poor lines choice or poor application of skill or not having the skills yet. For trails which I know I'd say the bike still helps, but as I understand the lines more its more me.
I'd def say though that without my BMX background and being able to bunnyhop and jump I'd have been far more injured!
er... dunno.
I ride a hardtail, so feel like I have to do more work than those fancy dans with their FSes with eleventy billion inches of travel that are like a monster truck in soaking up all the technical stuff. Certainly when it's steep tricky stuff I tend to mince.
But then if I was riding a CX bike, I'd be even worse at it, so clearly there's a fair degree of confidence and ability stemming from the bike.
On anything remotely technical I pretty much just hold on and hope.
So I’m the limiting factor.
Very much this. I said earlier in the tread I could get down any route I have ridden on any of my bike. That doesn't mean I could get down any route! If its going to take 200 mm of bounce and the bike to bail me out then I'll not attempt it as if that was the case the trail is outside my comfort zone.
One of the reasons Im trying to sell my down hill bike is that ill never take it anywhere near its limit, because basically I'm a pussy. If I fall off on an xc bike on a technical trail I'll be going pretty slowly. I'm fine with that. If Im exceeding the limits of what I can do on a down hill bike then I'll be going far faster, and it'll hurt far more.
I demo'd 3 bikes last weekend at the Malverns thingy, after 14 years of riding my trusty NRS with 75mm of travel, which whilst being an advantage still requires a bit of line picking - modern geometry/plusher travel/dropper seatposts made up for the lack of skill at speed.
I'd a shot of a rigid bike for a day a while back, put paid to my ideas of a gravel bike. front suss is a must! 😆
Still never really tried full suss, so can't comment on that.
Defo for me, especially on the 29" full suss. I find myself often realising I'm going faster than I really should on the downs but it always bails me out. Scared myself a few times and that never used to happen.
Less so on the hard tail although I'm sure it does.
The bike should bail you out.
If it doesn't, it's the wrong bike for the job, or a bad design.
Or you have deliberately accepted handling compromises for any of several reasons, eg full rigid, want to race, etc...
I wouldn't say my bike "bails" me out as such. I ride to my skills however limited they might be. Faster on a bike suited to the terrain, slower on something not so suited.
My riding has always been some what performances related, I hardly ever bimble. If I'm on a good bike riding easy terrain I'll just go faster, it doesn't always end well !!
I’ve been pondering this all day.
My honest answer is not really, or perhaps I don’t understand the question?
Does my bike let me ride things faster (or at all) over say a 90s rigid? Of course it does.
Is it possible for ME to ride my bike faster or over harder terrain than I do? Dam straight I could. Fear and to save my ego a bit ‘responsiblity’ means I’m rarely more than 9/10ths pace.
Is it possible that a better rider could ride my bike faster? Oh god yes.
I do very occationally run out of ‘bike’ a few weeks ago I tried to make a turn racing a mate and just ran out of grip, wasn’t braking, my position was good (for me) I just ran out of bike, big slide, caught it, shat pants.
I run out of talent much more often.
But, really over the last god knows how many years my skills have grown, my fitness (by and large) gets a tiny bit better and my bikes get better and all these things mean I get faster and more capable.