- Mountain biking can seem quite complicated,
there's plenty of things to learn.
Here are some of the things I wish I'd known
when I started mountain biking.
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How much a bit of simple bike maintenance matters.
From just being able to check your bolts
so something doesn't fall off and cause an accident,
to actually keeping an eye on your tire pressure
or lubing your chain.
It's all pretty easy, but it makes a big difference
to how well your bike rides.
At the bare minimum, after a ride, especially a muddy one,
I will wash my bike off, dry the chain out with a dirty rag,
give it a lube, and then just check
some of the common bolts that do come undone.
Things like your axles, your rear mech.
- Oh!
- And then when I get my bike out of the car
for the next ride, I give my tires a quick squeeze
to make sure they haven't lost any pressure,
give my bike a visual check over, and away I go.
The bike then should not let me down.
Hopefully nothing's going to fall off,
no mechanical problem's going to cause me any issues.
How much your tire pressure effects the ride of your bike.
Now I would say there's definitely like an operating window
where, yes it would be better in different conditions,
but it's all usable.
Somewhere from, say, 20 psi to 30 psi,
but if you go outside of that area, lower or higher,
then it can definitely cause you problems.
Too low a tire pressure you might puncture
or it might get worse than that,
you could start rolling tires, and if you make a mistake
say on the front wheel, start a roll on the tire,
that can then grab and cause a crash.
Also, go too hard on those tires
you're just not going to get any bite into the ground.
I think the most common problem here
is people not checking their tires often enough,
and they may lose a bit of pressure if they're tubeless
or even with tubes they can go down over a while.
So make sure you're not riding with tires
that're too soft.
The mountain bike trails don't just pop up.
They take a lot of work to build and maintain.
So if you're new to riding, why not try and find
the local mountain bike group or club,
speak to your local shop, and try and get involved,
go out and help maintain trails, build them.
It's great for learning what goes into it,
but also where you can and can't ride.
That adjusting your rear mech to work properly
is actually pretty simple.
Now I've got friends who've ridden bikes for 20 years
and still don't know how to do this,
so you should learn it.
It's all about getting the right cable tension.
Yes there are some more complicated things
like setting the limit screws
so you don't push that derailleur cage into your spokes
or get a chain jam down here.
And B tension does complicate things a little bit,
but actually indexing your gear is all about
getting the right tension on the cable down here
and then doing the fine adjustments on the barrel
up at your shifter.
If your chain is a little bit slow going to the lower gears,
so up the cassette, then just add a bit more tension.
So, screw that barrel adjuster anti-clockwise
to pull that outer cable out a little bit.
More tension on the inner cable, boom.
Or, if your chain's slow going the other way
then do the opposite.
Pretty easy isn't it?
The only thing that could effect that
is if your cable has a bit of friction in there,
so check that as well.
That chamois are a good thing.
And I'm not just talking about the ones
that you dry your car off with,
I'm talking about padded shorts, the ones that roadies wear.
I wear them pretty much every single time I ride,
it makes riding so much more comfortable.
I don't know why anyone would go without.
Henry 'bullet-proof arse' Quinney rode for 14 hours
doing his Everesting without running a set of chamois shorts,
so not everyone agrees with me,
but I think he's mental.
Fitness is quite important.
Now hopefully you're going to get fitter
when you start riding more and more,
but actually I think fitness is one of the big things
that can help you enjoy riding more.
If you're not fit from a different sport,
coming and starting mountain biking
can by painful, uncomfortable, and not that much fun.
So, when you really start to get
those fitness improvement gains,
your enjoyment of riding is also really going to get better.
You don't need to pack the kitchen sink.
Well, some mountain bikers do like to be prepared
for every eventuality.
I like to base what I take on the type of ride I'm doing.
So how far am I wandering away from where my car is,
or a point of help?
And then I can base what I take with me on that.
If it's going to take me an hour to hike back to my car
then I'll definitely take a tube and a pump,
or something to fix my chain.
If I know that I'm just doing laps on my local wood
and it's a 20-minute walk,
then sometimes I'll just take a drink of water
and that's it.
How many excuses you're going to hear.
Now, this is human nature, and I do it of course,
but some people will always blame their kit
or their bike, or not having the latest
and greatest suspension fork,
for not being as fast or as good,
or going riding as much.
Yes, having the latest, greatest kit is very, very nice,
and I'm very lucky, but try not to let not having that stuff
ruin your ride or turn you into someone that makes excuses
like, "I can't ride down that section
"'cause my brakes don't work."
Or, "My skills aren't quite up to it."
Let's try and make mountain biking
a much more positive experience and stop making excuses.
Let us know in the comments down below
if there's something that you discovered
after you started riding
that you wish you knew before you started riding.
And if you want some inspirations
to take your riding to the next level,
click up there for "How To Adventure More"
from our Adventure Week content,
and down there for some essential skills
when you start learning to ride a bike.
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