OK boys and girls, time for a good ol’ fashion rant…
While doing my usual mix of activities (work, beer drinking,
bike riding, reading about bikes, shopping for bike stuff, blogging, bike art, etc),
I realized that many of us (including me at times) spend TONS of energy trying
to eek out more speed on my bike. We all
read about carbon this or that to drop weight, new tires, training methods, blah
blah…
What I realized is that the # of f*cks I was giving to things
that had very little influence on my riding speed had creeped north of
ZERO. And that many of my riding buddies,
and the conversations we were having centered around these same, somewhat
insignificant things…
What are they you ask?
#1: Tires… Arguing
about tires is about as close to conversational masturbation as it gets. Ask 10 people what their favorite tire is and
you’ll get at least 5 different answers (even for a given terrain!). Granted, you can’t compare a Walmart tire to
a $75 race tire or to a downhill specific tire, but arguing that a high quality
Maxxis XC tire is faster or slower than a high quality Bontrager or Specialized
XC tire is just plain dumb. (I’m sorry,
those rolling resistance tests published are OK, but don’t tell the whole
story) We all know people out there that are absolutely killing it on tires we’ve
kicked to the curb saying that “traction was poor” or “it washed out in a turn”… Guess
what, it’s not the tire that sucks…it’s your technique. Work on it, over and over and over…when you
can get that worn out front tire to hold you in turns on kitty litter, you’ve
got $hit down…
#2: Boost… OK people,
listen, I’m a mechanical engineer…I understand things like forces,
stiffness/compliance, angles, etc…. But
when did a small amount of additional lateral wheel stiffness make me
measurably faster? Nope… If you can find a good, statistically valid
study that proves the lateral stiffness that boost spacing provides makes me
cover ground faster, I will sell all my non-boost crap and drink the
Koolaide. Till then, I will watch boost
empty peoples wallets faster while the value of their non-boost components goes
to hell...
So, take that time you spend at the computer writing emails
to buddies arguing about tires and boost and whatever else, and go f*cking ride
your bike…ride it fast to the point of near puke….ride no more than 1x per week
at Browns Ranch to practice momentum conservation and cornering, ride rocky
stuff to practice sketchy handling…ride with faster people to push you...just be sure to ride and don't blame life for getting in the way. Yeah, sometimes it REALLY does, but each time you think it does, i'll bet at least half the time you can come up with a plan that still gets you on the bike.
THAT's the #1 thing that will make you
faster.
If you’re getting in only 4 hours a week on the bike and spending
that or more surfing the internet reading bike related stuff looking for things
to make you faster, you’re doing it WRONG.
AR.
