A Blog on Bikes: Technology makes you lazy. Or extreme. Or something?

There is an interesting discussion ongoing on the STW forum with regard full suspension bikes making you lazy. Now I do not own a full sus however I have hired one before, and to be honest I loved it. However I can appreciate why the use of a full sus regularly might diminish some skills.

That is to be expected, the same as having suspension at all makes you less in touch with the ground in front of you having the full suspension means that your appreciation of the roll of the land is lessened as the shocks smooth everything out. However it is the same as saying that hydraulic brakes mean that you are spoilt by being able to hit steeper descents.

Actually I am sure someone on that forum thread has made that point, as technology moves forward we don't get lazier in fact we go after more and more difficult terrain. Surely that is progress?

Always riding on the edge, like the Reverend and the Makers lyric goes - if you're not living on the edge you're take up too much room. That is why we do this isn't it?

Well yes and no, sometimes you have to go back to basics. Slow down, take it steady and really think about how you are handling your bike.

A few weeks ago I went out on my BMX to try and hone some lacking skills by riding on smaller wheels, with weaker brakes and almost no grip in the tyres.

In trying to push it too much I crashed in a spectacular manner. However having sort of fixed the brake - electrical taped the cable to the handle bars - I set out with a one brake machine in order to do some laps around Cuckoo Woods.

The first thing to note is that one brake is probably more than enough on a bike with tiny wheels, while it gets up to speed pretty quickly it does shed speed quite fast as well. That said the brake was of little to no use and mostly caused the rear wheel to skid about, fun for quickly changing direction but rubbish for stopping. Or indeed for stability!

Although I think that has more to do with the bald tires than the brake.

Now small tires do tend to catch on everything in sight, which means small sticks, ruts and logs that would be gobbled up be the hardtail suddenly become a challenging obstacle. Any incline in the route has to be hit at speed otherwise you can't climb up it without spinning wheels.

Added to that the fact that sitting down is almost a no-no (too unstable when you're 6'2) and you end up with both an excellent physical work out (seriously I was constantly out of breath and with sore legs) but also a full on mental one. I felt more aware of having to pick lines much earlier than usual and I spent a lot of time walking trails and deciding where I would brake and pedal and how I would take corners - even considering where I should shift weight and when. This was exacerbated by the fact that in a lot of cases I had to walk the bike back up slopes to the start of my routes.

This was totally new to me, normally I am very much a grip it and rip it type of rider - and I must admit I quite enjoyed the cerebral side of thinking long and hard about where and how I would ride the trails. It also allowed me a chance to practice some of the lines I saw on yesterdays ride. In fact for most of the trails I have ever ridden the only time I know what is coming up is by riding it, not walking it and thinking about it.

Now I am not claiming I rode any of this at any great speed - if felt it though - but as said above it was a great work out and also had me giggling and laughing throughout the ride.

Again I did not Strava the ride although I did take a lot of photos.