Having explored different categories of bicycle in articles on Suite101 the writer explains what he himself rides
I’ve just posted an article on the basic types of bike and thought a few readers might be wondering what I myself ride.
At the moment I only have two bikes, a road bike and a mountain bike. I’d love a few more but have issues both about cost and about storage space, and, heck, I get a lot of pleasure out of riding the ones I do have. I’ve also ridden a fairly wide range of other bikes as hire, loan or demo rides - some brilliant, some pretty awful.
My road bike is quite a few years old now but gets well looked after and things like chain and sprockets have been replaced more than once (tyres too, of course). It came from Ribble Cycles, one of the UK’s leading bike stores, which just happens to be in the city of Preston only about 10 miles from where I live. It’s a 7005 aluminium frame, so it’s pretty stiff. Campagnolo gears, double chainset, 8-speed rear cassette. These days I do wish I had a triple chainset on some of the bigger climbs round here!
I’ve used this bike for light touring with a handle-bar bag and an SQR saddle-pack from Carradice - another Lancashire firm. It’s not designed to take a conventional pannier rack but if I wanted to carry a bit more stuff I could fit a beam-rack. However the stiffness of the ride - it is essentially a racing bike - means it’s not ideal for longer, more leisurely tours.
My mountain bike, which I’ve had for about 2 1/2 years, is a Marin Palisades Trail. The current Palisades has disc brakes, whereas earlier models like mine had V-brakes. Having ridden disc-equipped bikes quite a few times, I’d say this is one of the most significant upgrades possible - at least as big a deal as rear suspension. Otherwise there have clearly been tweaks to the frame design but the rest of the equipment spec looks pretty similar.
My Marin, then, is a fairly basic hardtail and could be consiered little more than an entry-level mountain bike. That said, I’ve ridden it on some fairly testing trails all over the UK (like the 7Stanes and Coed-y-Brenin) and also in Slovenia, and also found myself on a virtually identical bike in Greece last year, and it has always been my skill or nerve that has been the limiting factor, not the bike.
I’m convinced, as are many experts, that anyone starting out in mountain biking should start with a hardtail. You might be able to ride more demanding trails right away on a full-suspension bike, but that’s because up to a certain level the full-susser is more forgiving of poor technique. However as you try to progress, bad habits will catch up with you. Starting on a hardtail means you need to develop good basic skills from the start and surely that’s the way to go.
Having said that, I do yearn for a full-susser and while Marin do some very nice ones, I keep looking longingly at the Specialized FSRxc series. No mountain bike will ever look as beautiful as a good road bike, but these are pretty gorgeous, and get rave reviews for their ride qualities too.
