Drum roll…
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Have a great ride this weekend everybody.
Cheers,
Chris
Is this you? October subscriber winner announced
Mountain bike tire failure – Has this happened to you?
Two days ago I headed out for an MTB ride and noticed this big, dark lump of something spinning around with my front wheel as I rode down the street. Was it dog poo? A small animal caught between the treads perhaps?
I stopped to check it out. Nope, none of those. I had my second major tire failure. A really hideous, mutant looking air bubble between (I guess) a casing and the tread layer like I’ve never seen before, and as I turned for home to fit a new tire it got me thinking if this has happened to anyone else.
Has this ever happened to you? Do you know what causes it? Maybe just a manufacturing fault? Check it out – it’s huge!
I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has had this sort of tire failure before. Drop me a line in the comments if you can.
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2 x 10 Starts, Quicks and Grabs to rock your weekend (in a good way)
A selection of fast new tips, each with its own short video, that might just give you the edge you’re looking for this weekend:
The 2 x 10 Too Fast Start Solution
Fast? Yes. Not sure if they can help this guy, though…
Mtbtips.com September Subscriber competition winner announced
It’s that time again folks…
Are you the prize winner for the month of September?
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mtbtips on stage at the Bike Expo this weekend
Hi Groovers,
If any of you happen to be in Brisbane this weekend why not join me at the Bike Expo at the Brisbane Convention Centre. I’ll be on stage from 2:30 – 2:45pm Saturday 17th September to deliver a segment on mountain biking tips. It would be great to see some of my local subscribers there and catch up with you after stage, and put faces to names. You can find out more about the Bike Expo here.
Cheers, and enjoy your ride this weekend. I know I will. Eleanor and I will be hitting the trails somewhere in Brissy 
Chris
Is this you? August Blog Subscriber Competition Winner announced
Congrats to the following winner of the mtbtips Blog Subscriber Monthly Prize Draw for August:
Thanks for subscribing everyone. Enjoy the trails,
Chris
One of Mountain Biking’s Great Big No-no’s
(photo: Man vyi)
I see it all the time. Mostly with beginner mountain bikers, but sometimes with those who’ve been riding for years.
I’m talking about riding with a bad chain line. It’s a killer. And it creates all sorts of problems for your drivetrain, crunching and wearing your chain and gears, and killing your speed and efficiency on the bike.
But do you know what it kills the most?
It kills your thinking. It makes your decisions slower and that makes you ride slower. It makes you miss out on the smoother lines and opportunities you should’ve had to keep more momentum and ride better. That bad chain line habit makes it so much harder for you to adapt to what’s coming up next.
Don’t believe me? Then picture this…
Your chain’s in eighth gear at the back and granny at the front. A great big mountain biking no-no. Then around a corner a very sharp climb appears, with roots strewn across it. All of a sudden you need to do a heap of shifting, and your chain’s got to do a heap of twisting, to get you back to second gear.
Crunch, crunch. Damn it. You’re at a standstill half way up the climb.
That didn’t work.
But if you were riding with a good chain line things would’ve turned out very differently. You’d be over the hill and further along the trail by now.
But don’t worry, its not all bad. At least it’s one bad habit that’s easy to change. I’ll even show you how to kick the habit right now with this quick video
Think a bad chain line is no big deal?
Then don’t watch the video. But at least make this message worth my effort and think about this…
Often the little things on their own seem like no big deal. But, as you pick up more and more of the little skills and get better at them, then add them all together on the trail, you start becoming one big chunk of unstoppable-ness. Like a snowball rolling along, collecting what it needs to get bigger and better.
And that’s what you really want, right? You want the ability to ride any trail and ‘crush’ any obstacle in your path.
Thought so.
Then start growing your snowball here.
You and Me vs. the Bad Luck Fairy
Believe it or not, but Bike Karma is a real thing. The Gods of Mountain Biking put it into service in the 1970′s to educate all of us mountain bikers on The Ways. I’ve experienced the power of Bike Karma first hand many times, and at it’s worst it hurts a ton. But more on my hurt in a minute.
See, as always, us Humans have proven to be slow learners, me included…
Sometimes the bad luck that happens on the trail is true bad luck, but true bad luck is actually very rare. Ninety-nine percent of the time luck has nothing to do with what happened. We like to blame the Bad Luck Fairy because blaming someone else gets us off the hook, but most of the time what we experience is a direct consequence of our own actions. Its our bike treating us for the way we’ve been treating it.
Here’s how the story of Bike Karma often unfolds… (plus one true, painful story)
What you do: Never oil your shifter cables
What your bike says behind your back: Slowly but surely I’m going to get harder and harder to shift until you notice. And if you don’t, I’m going to snap a cable on you, mid race.
What you do: Never check your disc brake pads
What your bike says behind your back: There’s going to come a day soon when my brake pads wear out. We’ll be 30miles from home and I’ll start gouging the rotors and you’ll have to fork out even more cash to fix me. How would you like that, huh?
What I did in the year 2000: kept putting off the purchase of new elastomer springs I knew my old sagging Manitou forks desperately needed
What my bike did: disintegrated the fork elastomers on a sharp and fast downhill turn, which caused the bike to jack-knife and shoot me into a berm, shoulder first.
The result: A broken right collarbone, broken thumb, and a fat yellow bruise that ran from my two broken ribs up to my right ear.
The collarbone healed poorly and one inch shorter. I had four months of neck and shoulder spasms and it took two years to sleep pain-free on my right side. My shoulder still gives me trouble to this day.
Many times I wished that day was in a dream. A fairytale of sorts that never actually happened. Many times I blamed the Bad Luck Fairy for that crash eleven years ago, but it wasn’t her fault. She doesn’t even exist. My bad choices leading up to that day were what made it all happen. And they didn’t seem that bad until Bike Karma caught up with me.
Bike Karma is powerful stuff.
Is there something that’s been tapping you on the shoulder to be lubricated or replaced?
Speed Tip 3 Video – Threading the Needle
When Granny goes to thread her cotton through the eye of a needle, she needs good aim. She needs to be relaxed and have steady hands. No shaking. It doesn’t matter if the phone rings or the kettle whistles. What she needs right at that moment is one hundred percent focus.
And it’s the same in mountain biking.
Riding through a tight gap such as narrow trees at high speed requires one hundred percent focus. You need to be relaxed. You need steady hands and a steady mind.
But unlike Granny, if you miss the eye of the needle you could get seriously hurt. So you definitely can’t afford to be distracted.
But how can you be relaxed and focused when all you can think about are the distractions? Just imagine what would happen if you missed the gap and clipped a tree at 20 miles per hour…
So how do you control that fear and those thoughts of getting hurt, and shift your mind to focusing on the middle of the gap instead?
It is narrow, and it’s coming up fast. This is how you thread the needle…
