- In my eyes, you can never ride a mountain bike too much,
although daily life does have the habit
of getting in the way of this sort of thing.
But if you're creative, you can turn any ride,
even your daily commute,
into one that tests you a little bit,
and tests those skills, gets the heart rate up,
and more importantly, is great fun.
Here's how I use my commute for exactly that.
(light rock music)
(rattling)
The GMBN offices are located in the city of Bath.
Now Bath is effectively like a bowl,
which means you've got loads of hills around you,
which also means there's loads of flights of stairs,
little pockets of alleyways, and really cool terrain
you can use quite creatively.
That's exactly the sort of thing that you can do
to build a fun route to use on your daily commute.
Now just a little tip.
Look at all those little green bits on the map,
and try and connect them up.
We're here in Alexandra Park, and this is ideal.
There's some really good, cheeky little
ways down to the city center that are pretty technical,
a little bit hairy, and great for topping up on your skills.
(peaceful music)
Now the key to a really good urban ride
is actually planning it out a bit.
And now this is where Google Maps is your friend.
Put on satellite mode.
Have a look around the town you're in.
Now for example, I'm going from home,
which is up over top of one of the hills around Bath,
and I wanna make my way to the GMBN office.
Now as the crow flies, I could probably get there
in 15, maybe 20 minutes, but that's not quite enough.
I wanna have a bit more of a ride.
So, looking at this, so what I can see here is,
I wanna come down this main road,
then there's a green patch here, that means some woodlands.
So, I'm gonna go into those woods because
I also like to combine a bit of everything that I can.
(energetic rock music)
Then I'm gonna go down through here,
blast down that road as fast as I can possibly go,
(bike whooshing by)
and then actually to get to the next section,
there's a bit of a disgusting hill climb.
But actually, it's pretty good to have a little bit
of pain in the mornings before work.
Gets that heart rate going, gets the legs burning,
gets the lungs fired up, helps you focus more.
(panting heavily) (energetic rock music)
Difficult, it's an urban ride,
it don't mean it has to be easy.
That all right.
Mountain bikes ain't good at this but,
(panting) I'm doing 25 BPM.
It's a good way to start the day.
(energetic rock music)
Get those legs burning, get those lungs burning.
Onwards and upwards.
(energetic rock music)
So far as the concrete jungle goes, this is a real find.
So it's a nice steep, rolling down flight of stairs.
Bit of a slippy steep tarmac off camber bank,
and onto a really nasty, 90 degree left turn,
and down what looks like a really steep flight of stairs,
especially at the top here.
Now if this was wet, it might be a different story,
but today it looks bang on.
So there's a lot of factors here
you have to take into account.
Firstly, there's your approach, coming in.
You gotta make sure there's no one around when you do.
So I can actually check this on my run in at the top,
I can glance over the fence,
roll down this first flight of stairs here,
and this is great, this is pretty rough stuff so,
it does feel a bit like an off-road sensation.
Come down to this corner,
and my bike's actually too long to get around this turn,
so it involves a bit of trail skills here.
And I actually have to get my front wheel
onto that first step before I can actually straighten up
in order to get down here so,
it's actually quite a technical maneuver,
and actually, it does get the heart rate going
because it is pretty dangerous.
And off we go.
(wheels thudding)
Now the steps themselves at the top here,
they're really high, they're actually facing downhill,
so braking on them is not really gonna happen.
So there's definitely an element of speed control.
You have to do it first before you get off the brakes.
And then the steps themselves,
they vary in the length and the height.
So the whole thing is pretty rough to ride,
much like riding a rooted section in the woods.
You have to approach it in the same way.
You can't brake on it.
You've gotta have quite a light touch on the bike.
And this is where your suspension set up firm for urban
is actually really gonna come in
because it's not gonna bog down too much.
In theory, it should help me pass through across the top,
pretty quick.
(peaceful music)
Now we've got a video over on GMBN Tech,
on the very specific details I've done to this bike,
in order to get it ready for this sort of riding.
Be that just your daily commute,
or something a little bit rougher.
But a basic breakdown
is the fact that I'm running
a lot more low speed compression.
But I've not got my climb switch on.
I've just got the low speed compression
nearly fully wound in.
The same on the shock, and the same on the fork.
So the idea is it doesn't move around too much
to my body weight when I'm sprinting, riding stairs,
that sort of stuff, it keeps the bike propped up.
Tires, I'm between 40 and 50 PSI.
I haven't got an exact reading on these at the time.
If you check that video out, I'll let you know in there.
But on the rear, I'm actually running an insert in there,
because this stuff is pretty rough.
And a few times today
I have actually rimmed out on the back.
But with the insert in there, you just feel a slight womp,
as opposed to a proper ding,
and then that dreaded, dented rim you can get.
As for safety aspects, I've got a rear light.
This is just approaching to a USB on a computer.
There's no sort of moving parts,
as such, there's nothing to open and get water inside.
It's nice and reliable.
And up front I've got a little exposure light here.
Same thing, it lasts about an hour on full chat,
but I only ever need it on the minimum setting,
just for urban riding.
(peaceful music)
Cycling is quite often like we're in dark holes,
so I'm actually wearing a reflective layer.
Might not look it, but it is reflective.
And I'm actually wearing some waterproof trousers as well,
which makes a big difference because,
as you can see by the state of my bike,
I've gotten a little bit dirty today.
It does mean I can take them off at the other end,
have a shower at work, and my kit is not gonna be drenched.
Now usually when heading out mountain biking,
I'll take a proper hydration pack, like a CamelBak.
Now today I've got my regular day-to-day bag.
And now inside here, I've got a T-shirt,
I've got some spare pants, some socks,
just enough stuff, I always keep some jeans and trainers,
and a spare hooded top by my desk, ready for this.
So I can just go out ride in the morning,
have a shower when I get to work, get changed.
Job's a good 'un.
(light rock music)
Now just because we're in an urban environment,
it doesn't mean you can't get something similar
to riding in an off-road environment.
So this is a flight of stairs.
It's not that steep but still, it's pretty slippy.
The gap between the steps themselves
is pretty similar to my bike.
So it's actually quite like riding up a rooty climb.
The same exact technique is needed,
as you need to shift your body weight,
need to keep maximum traction on that back rail.
I have to be riding this in a low gear,
but that actually makes it hard as well
because the steps themselves are really slippery.
So that means I have to unweight as I'm pedaling.
And really to get all the way to the top of there,
is pretty flippin' hard.
(light rock music)
Right here is a flight of stairs
that actually makes it kind of fun,
and it's a bit of a challenge too.
There's a few little hidden factors.
So today is pretty miserable and damp,
the typical UK weather that you're gonna get
on the morning ride into work or college.
So I come blasting along this section tope off,
but I can't come into this turn too quick.
So simply you're just gonna slide out,
and lose your speed to get up those steps.
So a trick to get around here without getting a puncture,
without damaging your wheel,
and actually getting up those steps,
is to actually come slow in,
and then get a couple of hard cranks.
You wanna be in quite a load here.
And just before you hit that bottom step,
push into the bike,
and lunge as if you're doing a bunny hop.
That way when you do hit some of those steps,
your weight is off the bike as much as possible.
Then at the same time, you need to be looking out
to make sure there's no pedestrians there,
and get pedaling before you lose your momentum,
and carry on.
Pretty tricky, but actually a good technique to practice.
Pretty good fun as well to be honest.
(light rock music)
(bike rattling)
Well there you go, that is pretty much how I use a commute.
Not necessarily on a daily basis, but a few times a week to
top up on my skills and my fitness.
If you wanna see a couple more videos like this,
click down here to see Chris Smith's version
on an E bike, over on EMBN.
And if you want to know a bit more
about the bikes themselves,
click down here.
As always, don't forget to give us a big thumbs up
if you love GMBN, and click that subscribe button.
(panting)
(bike rattling)