Depends on what they're doing....

The only way they might become 'more skillful' is by practice, no tuition. And with practice comes failure (often bike parts)

Im with xiphon, it's when you're learning/out of control stuff breaks.

But generally, yea, the better you are, the smoother you ride, you can also blag your way out of trouble more often when stuff does go wrong.

I seemed to go through a bimodal curve.

Started off breaking nothing as I wasn't really riding anything that rough.
Broke cheep stuff.
Didn't break expensive stuff.
Got faster and broke expensive stuff.
I've now settled ito a fairly constant level of just breaking things.

Maybe all of them aren't bragging but simply accepting that they give their stuff a bit of a beating and therefore want something as strong as possible?

Ah yeah, only bad riders break things? Send this man on a skills course forthwith!

[img] [/img]

^^ an obvious case of "all the gear, no idea" 😉

He did that 2 races in a row, poor component choice 😉

OP - you have heard of 'error' and 'mistakes' I take it?
🙄

Buy cheep, buy twice is just the same as buy weak, buy twice. Only soempeople can't afford to trash 'AM' bits everytime they go on an uplift day at a DH track so prefer to buy the stronger components? Or replace the AM/DH with XC/AM, or any other niche's.

I get your point,

But there is always the unexpected, a pot hole, log in the way. Something even the best rider can't avoid.

Also there are people who just ride bikes for riding bikes sake, don't care about getting good at it, just enjoy it. Like most of us on here.

I am what you may class as a Clydesdale. Most of my stuff breaks through wear and tear. Not a big stack. My stuff breaks because I ride, alot, in sh***y conditions.

So when something does break, I want to replace, and upgrade to something that might have chance of lasting longer than the bit I broke.

So when something wears out does that put me in your 'I'm shite on a bike' category?

I broke two front wheels in 6 months by stuffing my bike into trees. So I bought a silly strong front wheel and have not done it since. (am on sensible wheels again now)

^ that's the day I beat Mr Atherton down Fort William 😀

I broke a few bits when I first bought my MTB - was a combination of weak components and poor riding/mechanical sympathy.
for each item that failed, I replaced it with a stronger/better variant.

As an example - I bent two chainrings and trashed the BB on a cheapie Truvativ 5D chainset - I replaced it with SLX AM (double and bash) which has been faultless...

I've now reached a plateau where I don't seem to be breaking so much, however my riding has improved along with the components.

Is it me or the bike? you decide...