Pimp your ride
It's not about the bike. Except that sometimes, it really is about the bike - as Anna Beck explains.
By Anna Beck
“A great little starter bike” would be a line often sprouted about the rather average Mongoose hardtail we used to sell to those beginning their mountain bike journey on a budget. I was lying. There was not a lot of greatness going on with the ‘Goose. People just didn’t want to hear that $500 was not enough for a decent starter bike. It got them away from Kmart though, and that was a good first step.
Fast forward a few years and while hosting women’s social rides, I am greeted by the same customers. Eager to ‘come and try’ mountain biking on their sub-par bike, invariably not particularly capable offroad; individual results really did vary. 26” tyres. Fully sick alloy frames and 15+ kg for a hardtail. No wonder these women can find mountain biking difficult!
We were told once by a particularly notorious cyclist that “it’s not about the bike”. We have since found out he is full of tripe and the saying is pretty out of vogue as well. The bike counts. It can be a deal-breaker for a newbie getting into cycling or an enabler of a bourgeoning passion. The bike matters.
In my extensive (N=1) study of reasons women think they are struggling on the trail compared to men, I have found that women tend to think “I am riding like shit: ergo, I am shit”, while men are more likely to think “this bike is rubbish", "I drank too much", or "someone moved that log in my way”. This is by no means scientific or definitive, and throughout my extensive testing I have found outliers, but it generally runs true.
I see these women on their crappy bikes and I just want to pass them mine to try, to prove to them that it doesn’t have to be as hard as they think it is on their 7-speed Huffy. There are so many options, and don’t let me get started on the value of a good chamois and embracing chamois cream.
Yet, it’s not always about the bike. If you’re spending 8k on a bike then the 10k bike isn’t going to buy you that much more speed. Perhaps it will give you more kudos with your local MAMILs though. The differential, however, between a $500 bike and a $1500 bike is Everest-like; we are looking at disc brakes, some branded componentry, suspension forks that actually go up and down…you know all the things that make mountain biking enjoyable.
So how do we increase global mountain biking enjoyment? Well, if you have a friend starting out, you can first and foremost be a good influence. Point them in the right direction. To a bike shop, not a department store. Urge them to spend more than they think they need to in order to enjoy the mountain biking experience rather than suffer through it.
The old "learn on a hardtail and then upgrade to a dually” doesn’t ring true for me: learn on the best, most comfortable bike you can. Enjoy the experience, then upgrade to the dream bike, whether it be an 8kg hardtail or a fully-blinged out gravity rig. To enjoy mountain biking you first must have a bike that is enjoyable!
