6 Horrible Things that People Do to Mountain Bikes

Gas powered engine??? REALLY??????? Buy a motorcycle.

Next worst is the kickstand. Death trap waiting to happen.

BTW, he’s dead wrong on the flat pedals.

I’d take his opinions with a grain of salt. He made some Captain Obvious statements(Hey, remember guys, don’t bolt an anvil to your bike!) and must have come up short for his list of six and just grabbed the first thing to pop into his mind.

If you think flat pedals fits into the top 6 list of things people shouldn’t put on their MTB’s, you should stop making lists because you’re not very good at it.

Heh +1.

Yeah, bar-ends should be on there over flat pedals for sure. Flat pedals are purely a preference, not a problem.

Hmmmm… Rigid fork, singlespeed, flat handlebars! Just kidding. 😆

Now to be serious. Seen someone riding on a broken frame, a rigid fork on a full suspension frame, a coaster brake mounted to a decent mountain bike that was converted to singlespeed. Powerwashing it! Oh lord! Seen someone doing it. Poor bike… Riding a dh bike on a XC trail.

Good one! and yes I have seen this too.

Oh and seen someone wondering why there front wheel was loose when they had a 15mm front hub mounted on a 9mm qr fork

Is that even possible?

Yup… They are both 100mm wide. Unlike the 20mm thru axle which is 110mm wide.

YOU WATCH YOUR MOUTH!! 😆

I like barends and don’t care what anyone says. I even have them on my flat bars on my rigid singlespeed. 😄 Last time I rode without them was a CX race, where they aren’t allowed, and I was missing them within minutes.

A friends bike. Your old hardtail. Or a bike you’re test riding for ST… 😆

[/quote:2s4ilbsq]
I saw two young guys at 24 Hours of Moab racing on dual crown downhill bikes .. and they had faster times than mine. 😏

Yeah, I got passed by pretty much all the "big bike" class at Fontana. I like to think that the lot of them were doping or something.

All bicycle racers are doping .. duh 😆

I disagree with the smooth tires also. If my mtn bike is my only bike and I want to commute, why would I wear down your "real" tires while riding on pavement?
Yeah, it’s a pain to swap them out (especially if you’re tubeless, which I’m not) but I’ll take the little bit of prep time and roll easier for the 26 mile round trip to and from school and save the "real" tires for trail shenanigans 😃
Unfortunately, it took me a pair of tires to learn that…

As for a "horrible" upgrade, what about toe clips when they’re tightened down? I’ve always seen them as the worst of both flats and clipless. (For the record, my wife has toe clips and loves them, but she only rides on pavement/paved trails.)

+1! About three years ago, I bought a pristine 1999 aluminum hardtail on craigslist for a great price. It included a second wheelset too. I primarily use it for commuting with a set of semi-slicks, but I keep some knobbies on the other wheelset for any time my trail bike is being serviced. I don’t care if I get weird looks for the smooth tires, it makes a great commuter!

+1 here too! I still run them even though I take some ribbing about it. Personally, I have only experienced the positive aspects and none of the negatives…

yeah, power washing is bad, bad, bad.

but a dh bike on an xc trail? worse the other way around.

as per the original article- no flat pedals? where’s this guy been hiding the past few years? completely lost credibility there.

but yeah, seems like he had 5 minutes to think of 6 things for an article.

i want my 15 minutes back for reading through this stuff.

Look at this one here and you see all the things you can do wrong… 😄

I was just about to say "REFLECTORS". Take them off and get lights if you are riding at night. I hate seeing those clear plastic pie plates (idiot protectors) behind cassettes too. Learn to shift correctly and keep your RD tuned.

The bar ends are at the wrong angle. 😃

I know it’s a bad fashion, but if you’re riding at night on the street, reflectors are a good idea. If you’ve ever seen someone out at night with those on their wheels you know how effective they are. You’ll spot them long before you spot a blinky tail light, and the reflectors never need new batteries.

Ugly, distracting little stick catchers IMO. Wear a reflective jersey so I can see the outline of a human rather than two little blobs that look like they are bobbing up and down. I always have to stare at these things at night when I drive by people with them because from far away it looks like two fireflies on meth. I only end up realizing that it is a biker by the time I am within 20 yards of them anyways. Have certainly almost wrecked the car staring at them bobbing up and down and thinking I might be having a close encounter of the 3rd kind.

i want one

I assume nobody noticed the mirrow on the left side of the handle? It’s hard to see infront of the bar end. 😉
This bike belonged to a young guy, who was very proud of it and we all had a good laugh at the forum. Today he’s older and didn’t abuse his next bike this way.
Biggest no-go for me is a kickstand

@JSatch: This is a unique, hademade Corratec Ait Tech – priceless. Sorry bro 😄

my bad. thought it was a walmart bike, in which case it’s a bitchin’ ride with all the trimmings you’d ever desire, except maybe a bear bell.

then i googled corratec air tech:
http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/ … t-09-34462

ouch

Yeah, even the roadies will laugh at you if you put a mirror on your bike. Fenders are alright in certain situations but in general, not a good "upgrade."

😆 Here’s my bike set up how I race it at the 3rd and final Snake last weekend. Lots of no-no’s. Gripshift. Bar ends. Fenders. But whatever, I do what I want hahaha.

In my defense – the fenders were AWESOME. I could blast mud and puddles at full speed without a problem. No worries about mud getting past my sunglasses and into my eyes, and no cold water spraying my crack after every puddle. It’ amazing how invisible spandex is against a stream of water 😃

You are supposed to use that cold water hitting you in the crack to cool down your core body temp while redlining yourself during the race. 😆 😆

It’s a Air Tech Zone 2008, not the Mutant. The price was like $1.000, but this doesn’t make it any better

But if you don’t own an old hardtail, you have no other bikes in for review, and you’re riding with your friends so they don’t have bikes to spare? 😉 😼[/quote:2frtgirq]
You, sir, need some new friends. 😆 😎

I admit to power washing last week. How bad is it? Only thing I noticed so far is some stickiness in the cassette and loose end of cable unraveling.

Hi there bubblehead,

High pressure water puts it in places it was never meant to be in a bike and the nature of bicycles(unimaginable number of rotations on wear parts) just wreaks havoc on everything it gets into, displacing lubricants and accelerating wear.

When I first started riding, I washed my bike a lot and sometimes with high pressure water. Now, I wait until its really dirty before I wash it and just clean the fork stantions to keep from blowing the seals.

I admit to power washing last week. How bad is it? Only thing I noticed so far is some stickiness in the cassette and loose end of cable unraveling.[/quote:1mei5m48]

mostly bearings, ie suspension, headset, bb, hubs

under pressure, water can seep past the seals.

can also get into fork and shock seals too.

Looks okay to me.