You need to be aware of a few things if you want to be an Expert:
1: Know your tyres. At least five different sets of tyres for the wildly different conditions present in the UK. Using the wrong tyres can be fatal.
2: Lube. You must know about lube. GT85 is not lube, WD40 is not lube. There are specific lubes for specific weather conditions, heaven help you if you use the wrong lube. It doesn’t matter that your chain will get covered in crap within 5 minutes; you must use the right lube.
3a: However much travel you have on your bike is the most travel anyone could ever need, even if it is a hardtail / rigid.
3b: Laugh in the face of physics. There’s no way anyone could want or need more than 160/160 brakes. Steve Peat rides 140/140, conversation over.
4: The wise and prudent man fashions a mudguard for his £3000 bike out of an old coke bottle or innertube.
5: You are only allowed to have a strong opinion about Orange bikes if you’ve never owned one.
6: Learn and understand these terms: Power Ranger (anyone who wears more armour than you) , Skills Compensator (any bike with more suspension or generally better components than your bike), Ego Chariot (owned exclusively by middle aged IT consultants to show how much money they have)
7: Make sure you overtake other riders at all costs, then come to the forum and boast about how you “dropped a Power Ranger on a Skills Compensator” (see above). Do this even though they probably didn’t know they were racing you; a win is a win, and you are a winner.
8: Brake jack totally exists and you totally understand it; everyone needs next year’s 20-link VPP DW exo-link multi-point super pivot technology. It really makes a difference when you’re bumbling along the canal or trail, really it really does, honestly.
9: Never forget that biking is a very serious business.
10: At least it’s not BikeRadar though