If you follow me over on Instagram, you might know that I just finished up building a new mountain bike. It’s an All City Electric Queen with 27.5+ tires. While it doesn’t completely align to the current slack and long trend in hardtails, it is definitely more of a playable bike than my race-focused Focus Raven 27r and I’m really looking forward to hitting the trails with it this year.
Unfortunately, I am woefully out of vogue. According to an article on Singletracks.com, plus tire bikes are being ridden into the sunset, replaced by better tuned full suspension 29ers and the like.
If I haven’t spent the last 40 years being on and around bikes, I might be upset, thinking that I made a bad choice for my latest bike.
But that brings me to my thesis – nothing in bikes is really dead.
Hipsters on penny farthings. Track bikes for commuting. Dirt jump bikes with 26″ wheels. Bikes of every size, shape and color come into my shop. Training wheels abound when balance bikes are a better choice. Wal-Mart calls bike-shaped-objects mountain bikes. The list goes on.
The UCI and major manufacturers want you to think that road cycling is dead and you should start riding on gravel, but you don’t see the organizers of the Tour de France shrugging their shoulders and shutting down the race. My local road group still attracts 20 riders at 6:30 in the morning 3 days a week.
Meanwhile, if you went to your local newsstand (good luck with that) and picked up the latest crop of mountain bike magazines, you’d think that every mountain bike made had full suspension and that you were putting yourself at great personal peril if you hit the trails without knee, elbow and chest protection.
Will full suspension make your ride better? Yes. Will it make YOU a better rider? Probably not.
I rode far more primitive trails than I ride today on a 20-inch BMX bike. Without a helmet. In super short Umbro soccer shorts. I lived to talk about it. Knowing how to pump a bike and weight and unweight for corners and obstacles made me a better rider.
Circling back to my new bike… It’s a hella fun ride. It’s balanced, corners well and is well suited to the rooty, rocky trails of southwest Ohio. You’re going to have a hard time convincing me to pull out my FS Salsa Horsethief this summer.
Oh, and by the way… I do have a gravel bike. It’s great for urban adventures. I just built a ‘race’ bike, too.
Nothing is dead.
Lou Gubrious loves to talk about bikes. Especially over a beer. Likes to ride bikes, too. Then drink a beer.