just musing over lunch there that all my off road rides since early May have been on my FS.  The newish Bird hasn’t turned a wheel, as I tend to go FS when trails and weather are dry..

Haven’t done much off road in August due a rib injury, but have had some very gentle short local ones in the last week.  May, June and July was loads and loads of dry and dusty FS riding 🙂

I wonder how different it will feel – I may take the HT to Cathkin tonight for a gentle lap and see if I can still work it !!!

did the moors 100 on my ecr. 1 bike ownership is suiting this serial bike swapper fine.

^^^ aye, your pics on FB looked great Tony !

Bronson for everything, I’ve actually wrecked a perfectly good Magic Mary by taking the wee yin out on the tarmac NCN. Only use the CX bike to save exposing the Bronson to salt etc on the roads, as I prefer pedalling it.

I tend to keep my hardtail tucked away for winter riding as in my mind there’s less to go wrong and / or get worn away in gritty mud. This has led me into a mindset where it’s my ‘backup’ bike and inevitably, the bike that gets fitted with all the hand-me-downs and partly worn out kit.

So, when my full suspension bike broke at the start of the best summer we’ve had in years, I was a wee bit disappointed, but I rolled out my backup and hit the trails on a steel, 3×9, 26in wheeled delight! The perceived speed, the feeling of just being in control and no more, the snappy steering, all were leaving me with a huge grin on my face.

Of course, that was all tempered by the lower back pain, but hey-ho!

Anyway, the point being that I’d forgotten just what a hoot a good hardtail can be like in good conditions and the upshot is that I’m currently planning on upgrading all the kit on Penelope to bring her back up to top spec! 🙂

when N=2 it’s not really a hard choice but I do sometimes take the FS out on the local bridleways when the CX would be faster just because it’s a more engaging ride – and I can practice manuals when there’s no-one around to see me fall off.

Most of my off-road riding is now on the fat bike, because it works out very cheap!

I do have a ‘mtb’ for commuting, although it’s also a rigid singlespeed 29er, so it’s either a no frills MTB or a quite posh commuter depending on tyres choice and whether guards are fitted.

I do still have a road and CX bike though. Mostly because I can’t bring myself to sell the road bike, Im sure the crosser would do just as good a job with a second set of wheels!

I have to force myself to ride the HT’s…. at both ends of the scale (100mm Carbon XC and 160mm steell)

Each time I’m initially rewarded… taking the Carbon HT up some climbs on a non-tech trail etc. it just flies… then I get to the fun and it acts like a XC bike … scares the living daylights when I get a fair bit of air.

The 160mm steel 26er… exactly the opposite…

Both I then feel the next week….

Then I get back on a FS and I’m rewarded….

N+1+ is always nice but unless I go back to racing XC the bike really doesn’t justify being kept.

Just got another FS frame…. and waiting to try it out properly .. once I put the extra 20mm on the forks I’ll see if their is any point keeping the T-130 … at the moment the med framed T-130 still feels more playful than the large Mega AM 27.5

not ridden my hardtail for 8-10 weeks either, having said that it needs a new derailleur fitted.. broke the sram GX one on a small rock.. the spring stretched and will only find 10 speeds..

(anyone know if sram are under the counter swapping these, i’ve heard the 12 speed GX eagle warranty replacements are pretty frequent, although not advertised)

I spent 3 days away a few weekends ago riding on my fs with 170mm Lyriks / 160mm rear travel etc. Got back on the hardtail last week and it felt awful! Took me about 45 mins to get back into the flow of things – Lyriks made my 2006 U turn revelations feel really bad.

been riding my HT a lot at the moment mainly because I’ve not been doing anything that requires the suppressor.  Prefer riding the HT at cathkin.  Might take it up a munro too for a change

I’m very boring, I take the FS out for big mountain riding/steep playing about, HT for local rides with the club (partly cos it’s got fast tyres on and I usually end up doing a few road miles to get across to the club). This might change a bit when I get the big tyres on the HT for winter.

Use my Codiene 29 for everything,

I’ve got a 29er Hardtail and an old Superlight but the Codiene pedals really well, even on XC stuff I still enjoy riding it.  Its the only bike I have with a dropper though so that probably has a lot to do with it

I put a rigid carbon fork on my Solaris hardtail about 3 months ago and haven’t yet changed it back yet…

As a result I’ve mildly dismantled my rigid SS El Mariachi so I have a bit more room in the garage

So far so good, have therefore gone down to 3 rideable bikes (arkose commuter, brompton, rigid solaris)

I only have the one bike. It covers off road, occasional commuting and general messing about with bits of road when necessary. Cotic Flare in standard guise. I did used to just have a HT, but age is making me try FS.

Hmm, I have, er, two SolarisMAX’s, does that count? 🤪

mk1 in B+ bikepacking mode.

LS in 29er/130mm fork mode.

’97 Kona Lava Dome now has semi slick skinwalls for pub hack duties. PP Shan for winter, but don’t mind taking it out any time. Capra for big rides. *Disclaimer – I’ve hardly ridden any of them this year. Just got an ebike though so that’s all that’s going to be ridden for a while

I only have one bike so ride it all the time at all times of the year.  It does road, gravel and easy singletrack.  I even ride more tricky single track but it is very slow going.  It also has no brakes or gears so other than changing the odd chain and a bottom headset bearing every year it need no maintenance other than cleaning/lubricating the chain.

Well I took the hardtail out for a wee spin at Cathkin. It felt really weird for first 20 mins, then it felt great 😜

The same Full Suspension Bike, With Dropper Post, All year round.

There’s only two extra things to maintain compared to a HT. Rear shock and pivots. Probably only adds about £200 a year to maintenance compared to a Hard Tail and that’s paying for the labour, not doing it yourself.

Also, suspension wears out quicker in dry and dusty conditions than muddy and wet. The seals keep wet mud out, while dust gets through the seals much easier. Through some of Winter, most of the mud is frozen anyway.

I ride a lot less in Winter than Summer anyway, mainly because it’s cold and the amount of faff and cleaning is too high to be worth doing it more than once a week. In Summer I’ll be out 4 times a week.

I wouldn’t want to ride a crappy bike for some of the year. I’d rather just use my best bike all year round and if there is going to be more maintenance bills just pay them. I don’t do biking because it “can be done cheap”, I do it for fun.

I actually tried running a cheap Hard Tail for Winter rides for a while, I didn’t work, it cost more money in the long run because it had all the same maintenance bills as the Full Suss except Pivots and Rear Shock which is only a small % of the total maintenance bill anyway, plus, as the bike was cheaper quality, parts were breaking on it that wouldn’t have broke on my best bike!! In the end I sold the Hard Tail and made quite a loss on it (Lost at least £600 and only did 1,200 miles on it – 50p a mile!)

I only have the one bike. It covers off road, occasional commuting and general messing about with bits of road when necessary.

This for me too, a Switchback with a few pairs of wheels for different stuff- 1 rolly pair on light wheels for longer cycle path potters out, 1 all roundy sort of pair with a knobbly front and Minion SS on the back that are good for most stuff and the odd road link if I need to, and a bombproof pair with chewing gum tyres that are misery anywhere other than slung in the car and taken somewhere 😆 They’ve all got discs on so all I need to do is swap the cassette over, or if I’m feeling singlespeedy they’ll all have cogs on as well as discs.

I’ve had just one bike for knocking on 2 years now. It is relaxing, although I’m getting a bit itchy for a FS for trips away.

 It felt really weird for first 20 mins, then it felt great

where did you start from?

Just ride the one bike these days, 3 sets of wheels to choose from though….

Pretty similar to you @iainc, I would normally reach for the old Ti456 for local routes like Drumlanrig, Wanlockhead, Durisdeer but it hasn’t turned a wheel since I built up the FS frame/forks in January.

The Yeti SB6 might be a big old 6″ endurotastic thingmy but it’s just loads more fun to ride. Only time I might miss the HT is on the long draggy climbs over the Lowthers but even then the SB6 seems pretty efficient enough that I don’t pine for the HT.

I like this idea, having built up a collection of all kinds of styles of bikes I am now yearning to go minimalist and for the one bike that does all. Sadly I dont think it’ll happen as I now do a lot of road riding as well as mtb , tried to go the CX gravel bike route for everything but I really missed the suspension from my fs on those bumpy days out!

where did you start from?

the top car park – so original loop, then take a right in Big Wood down new blue, up the return, down new red, back up to Big Wood and rest of the original loop – takes me a shade under 40 mins.  Was just one loop before dong a mon night coaching session with sxc west youth cluster.

^^^ darned quote function  🙁

Going to go today for some mile munching.

^^^ I know you don’t rate the place much, but I think that with the new stuff it’s a reasonably enjoyable 40 min lap, so for me, with it being less than 10 minute drive from home, a couple of laps are easy to squeeze in among family stuff and offer an ok ride and a good workout.  The rocky descent that was made for the SXC and Glasgow 18, into Brig O Doom offer a nice challenge in the wet too 🙂

It’s just riding bikes. You’re probably overthinking it.

I’d been running a HT and full sus for a couple of years, inevitaby ended up with something wanting attention on one or the other so one would always be parked in the shed. Ditched both and bought a Cotic Flare, normal 650b wheels, 120mm forks, 150mm dropper, fast(ish) tyres. Does everything I want from a mtb.

*do have a gravel bike.

The rocky descent that was made for the SXC and Glasgow 18, into Brig O Doom

Is that the bit you decent then have to turn left pretty quickly to get up the hill then across the stream?

Yeah, there’s is a new off piste drop into it, quite steep and rocky !

I’ve been up the braes a few times recently, I followed the euro championship course once or twice. couple of bits I can’t even get up(assuming I’m identifying the bits right, think I am)!  those dudes are super heros as far as I’m concerned, there’s also a couple of short very techy downs like 15/20feet or so(I think I know the one your talking about ianc), my attitude to those was is f that!

how the hell they get round it in 15 minutes is beyond me. fastest I did(missing out a couple of bits and taking some shitbag lines) was 21 minutes on the ebike! 😆 Good challenge to get that down anyhow!

My respect for XC dudes has increased, immeasurably! 😆

I also went in over blairbeth golf course the other day too. interesting they are are turning that into a park as well, apparently going to be putting in a junior mtb couse on it.