so I have here a list of mountain bike terms that people either get confused
or pronounced completely wrong and this is interesting because I don't speak perfectly
I'll be the first person to admit that and furthermore I grew up on Long Island and so
I'm used to hearing people butcher the English language constantly I'm going to start off with
one that actually bothers me it makes my skin crawl it has to do with suspension
so even casual mountain bikers are familiar with a variety of suspension terms sag air
pressure compression damping rebound damping dampers you gotta stop calling it dampening
I'm embarrassed for people when they call it dampening do you know what dampening is?
suspension dampening I'm dampening my suspension
get it good and damp dampen it the only reason I'm doing this is because a lot of you are
going to thank me you're cringing now that you know that you said that dampening is to make
something damp damping is reducing the amplitude of an oscillation damping is a suspension term
damper and damping is the correct term you have your compression damping your rebound damping
your damper is what causes all the damping to take place but yeah it's damping not dampening
these are not your forks it's your fork I heard people make the same mistake when I was in the
mobile electronics Industry people would be like yeah I got 20% tints on my car it's not
tints it's tint and to say that these are your forks is also wrong this is your fork it's one
unit and it's called a fork now this next one I rarely hear actual cyclists get wrong
this is not your crossbar it's your top tube and that one's not as egregious because I think people
who don't know about bikes don't know that there's an actual word for this and it kind of makes sense
to call it a crossbar but it's a top tube sprocket chain ring these are not interchangeable terms
the chain ring goes up front and sprockets are individual cogs in your cassette now I
distinctly remember back when I rode BMX they never called the chainring up front a chainring
it was always called a sprocket I've never heard it referred to that way on a mountain bike up
front it's a chainring and anything in the rear is a sprocket or a cog while we're on this topic this
is a cassette and this is a Freewheel now the fact that this has one Cog on it is not what makes it a
Freewheel a Freewheel can have just as many cogs as a cassette what makes it a Freewheel is that
the whole mechanism including the bearings and the pawls are all built into the same mechanism and it
screws onto the bike on a cassette there are no bearings or any movable Parts it actually slides
onto a freehub that has all that built into it so this is a cassette and then if you can hold
it and spin it on the bench it's a freewheel maybe I'm nitpicking this is not your shifter cable it's
your shifter housing the shift cable is inside of it this is your shift cable and while we're up
here this isn't your brake cable it's your brake hose if you have hydraulic disc brakes and if you
had cable actuated brakes it also wouldn't be your brake cable it'd be your brake housing here's one
I had to look up handlebar or handlebars are these your handlebars or is it your handlebar both are
correct you can use either one so however you were saying it is fine they're more like that people
bust my balls about this one all the time is this a derailleur or a derailleur actually you can say
both it's a derailleur or a derailleur it actually depends on where you're from it seems like people
in Britain all seem to call it a derailleur I call it a derailleur and that's okay it's
just a different pronunciation now this next one isn't as much subject to mispronunciation as much
as it is just complete confusion clipless pedals these are clipless pedals you know the kind that
you clip into they're called clipless pedals makes no sense whatsoever to call them that in 2023 but
like most things in the English language that make no sense it's derived from an older term so there
used to be these big cages with straps that you would actually put your shoe into and strap down
and when they invented these they said oh it's clipless and so now they are forever clipless
pedals even though they're the ones you clip into this one doesn't actually get talked about
much but this is your bottom bracket this is your bottom bracket shell what's the difference well
the bottom bracket consists of two bearings with a crank spindle going through it and the bottom
bracket shell is the part of the actual bike frame that encloses it now the interesting part is that
a crank set consists of two crank arms and a crank spindle whereas a bottom bracket consists of two
bearings and a spindle and so the spindle is both part of the bottom bracket and the crank set and
so it's confusing even for me when I'm referring to this area I just call it the bottom bracket
but it actually consists of the bottom bracket shell and the bottom bracket bearings and if you
combine the bottom bracket bearings with the crank spindle it's called the bottom bracket [Music]
the game for a little bit you've probably used one of these chain wear indicators to see how how much
your chain has stretched out is your chain really stretching I am guilty as charged of using this
term as well and it's not really incorrect to say your chain stretched but it's not actually
stretching it's actually those little pins inside the rollers just getting sloppy and moving around
more and so it causes the illusion of stretching but really your change is worn out and it's time
for a new one the Chain's not actually stretching even though it is technically getting a little bit
longer regardless I'm gonna keep saying that the chain stretched out Public Service Announcement
this is a wheel now I don't see as many people get this one wrong but I've heard in the last
year yeah my my tires bent my rim is bent would technically be true a lot of people refer to this
entire unit here as a rim it's a wheel this is your tire this is your Rim these are your
spokes and this is your Hub they're all part of a wheel this is your dropper seat post not your
seat post dropper now I'm actually not even sure how incorrect this is but I hear a lot of people
usually old people calling this a seat post dropper and I've never heard a company call
it that I've never heard a mechanic call it that so he's called a dropper seatpost
and so I guess Public Service Announcement I don't care what you call it one of the
most important adjustments you're going to make to your suspension is setting your sag
and preload are not the same thing sag is the result right how much your suspension is sagging
down when you were sitting on the bike preload is one way you might adjust your sag now on an air
Fork we usually just refer to it as air pressure and on like a Suntour fork with a coil in it you
twist a little thing that says preload adjusting your preload will affect your sag there's a lot
of other things that might affect your sag like how much gear you have on your body position your
stack height but you adjust your sag with your preload and so one does not set their preload you
use your preload to achieve the proper sag does that make sense this next one ruined my life this
is not a Dropout it's a fork end this is a Dropout you use to differentiate a fork end from a Dropout
is not the fact that on a fork end you can adjust the chain tension by moving the wheel in and out
a fork end requires that you derail the chain to remove the rear wheel a drop out you can remove
the rear wheel without derailing the chain just seems like an odd distinction but Fork ends and
dropouts so this is a pedal anyone care to guess what this little part is this little bolt that
fits into your crank arm it's the axis usually I call it a spindle and I doubt that anybody is
going to correct you on this one but it's called an axis so there you go which ones have you guys
been getting wrong I've gotten fork and wrong for years I've gotten pedal access wrong in
multiple videos even though I knew the correct term I'll just say it the other way and so there
you go bicycle wrong speak I hope you enjoyed this little Deep dive into terminology that
people get wrong I really do want to hear what you were getting wrong and I want to hear ones
that I didn't mention today hope you found this all useful and informative and if you didn't I
hope you at least found it entertaining thanks for riding with me today and I'll see you next time