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It has been over 20 years since I have ridden WITHOUT clipless pedals, so getting out comes completely natural now.
I would spend as much time riding with them on non-technical trails (or on the road) just to become more confident, and to get to where you don’t have to think about getting out when you need to. I remember falling a few times at first, but it didn’t take long to be comfortable with them.
My road bike does that about once per year. I pull the crank arms, grease the splines, re-install and tighten the bolts good and tight. Stops it every time.
Not the only thing that could cause the creak, mind you, but what you describe sounds exactly like what my road bike does.
I am unconvinced that there is much difference at all between brands — beyond personal preferences. Statistically, some may be more durable than others, but you are not gonna get much insight on that here. I can tell you that Trek road bikes are the best because I have ridden many thousands of miles on mine for the past 16 years with no problems, but that is just one man’s experience. Then next person you ask might tell you his frame broke in two the first time he hit a pothole. Neither his, nor my own, experience really tells you much about what to expect if you were to buy one.
I would go with what fits you best, and what components are best, within the budget you have to work with.
A fork with more or less offset will change the trail at least slightly, and I suspect that any bike shop might be concerned about liability if you were to make a change — basically it will make the bike either slightly "twitchier" or else slightly more stable, but harder to turn, depending on which way you go. Whether you notice the difference at all is hard to say.
My experience re changing offset is more with motorcycles than with bicycles, but I don’t really see where 29s would be particularly more sensitive to offset changes than would 26ers.
Note that changing offset also will change wheelbase — so if you are reducing offset (and thus reducing wheelbase, you want to be sure you will have sufficient clearance — wouldn’t want the front tire to contact the down tube on full compression! Though I doubt this would be an issue.
While there is little doubt that tapered square spindles are now used on lower end cranks, there is nothing inherently crappy about them — my old mountain bike has XTR components (1993 vintage) with square tapered spindles, and, after almost 20 years of hard use, there is really nothing wrong with the crank, and I have seen no reason to change it.
Really, a higher-end crank is not likely to make you any faster, unlike, say, a better fork, lighter wheels etc.
I am in the Utah mountains and ride all winter. Since we will be snowcovered soon, and not clear until April or later, most of that won’t be singletrack, however. In fact, once the snow flies, I mostly ride my mtn bike on the road, or a few bike paths at lower elevation, and perhaps try sneak a trip south or to lower elevation (winter can be nice in Moab, for example).
I ride at temps down to about zero, or for short rides, a bit below, but the trick is to find warm clothing. Boot covers are a must, as are good gloves. I wear a beanie and ear brassier under my helmet, and underlayers etc from the ski shops. XC skiing stuff works pretty well, I find.
This year, I think I will slap some fenders on the bike though, as it is the slop thrown up from the tires that gets me soaked and muddy, and prematurely cold.
Last year, I managed to ride 60-100 miles per week through the winter, which made one hell of a difference in how well I could ride in the early spring this past year! Work in the gym just isn’t the same!
Good to know — will bookmark your website. My ancient, and beloved bike runs with a vintage 1993 Mag 21 and still gets regular use. Was worried about being able to repair if I got air leaks though, and had thought about possibly changing to a newer fork, but really don’t want to.
I ran into a similar problem on my road bike last year — although it skipped mostly under moderate power, and always where the master link passed over the cassette. I was gonna pitch the master but my brother-in-law thought that my chain was too long. Took out two links and it works fine since.
But if the cassette is very old, there is a very good chance it is worn and causing, or at least contributing to, the problem. In my case, I knew that the cassette was quite new, so assumed that was not the problem.
It is way past time to replace my mountain bike chain, and I will replace the cassette at the same time. Since I ride my mtn bike on the road in winter when there is snow on the ground, I will try wait until spring so as not to subject my brand new chain and cassette to all that salt and crap they put on the roads here in Utah winters!
For me, it depends somewhat on the surface — ie how much traction is available. If traction is limited, I find it best to stay seated and to try pedal with as close to constant power throughout the stroke to keep from breaking the tire loose. If traction is good, I will stand for steep, short climbs, or on longer climbs, may stand for the final portion if I feel like a really need a lower gear than what I have. But in general, I am much more efficient seated.
Hard to generalize as to whether to try avoid the obstacles on the trail — I ride a vintage hardtail, so I probably try go around things I might ride over with a newer full suspension bike, but you really just have to find what works for you, and for the particular trail.
That was close to my experience when I roadraced motorcycles a few years back. The beginner class was by far the largest field, and the riders were most likely to pull bonehead moves that put other riders in danger.
Seems like lots had visions of professional careers dancing in their heads or something. Whenever possible, I would try to ride in any other group — the experienced racers might have lapped me about once every 4-5 laps (!) but they did so without trying to run me off the damned track.
If it is not the bearings, and not a matter of an insufficiently tight quickrelease, I would guess that the frame is toast — that either the chainstay or seatstay (or both) are cracked from accident or just material fatigue.
Dunno about anyone else, but I would find it impossible to do any serious riding at all (road or trail) with my heart rate at a constant 125 bpm, and don’t know why I would want to.
I believe you will burn more fat at a higher heart rate — yes, a bigger percent of your energy expenditure will be glycogen rather than from body fat, but still more fat in a given time. Of course, I suppose it is possible that at 125 bpm you can maintain that pace for longer times, but who has that much time?
Just as an example, on Friday, I did a moderate length, relatively flat (ie perhaps 1,500 ft of elevation gain) road ride where I averaged a 155 bpm rate for two hours, and I could certainly done longer (might have needed at least a sports drink or gel to maintain blood sugar, but….).
Normally, I do not look at my hrm on mountain bike trails — just check it afterwords — looking at the monitor is too big a distraction, and in any case, I know I will sometimes run it over the top of the scale and would rather not know at the time!
Agree with allroy71 — when I have lower back pain, it usually due to my posture on the bike. For me, I find it easier to keep my back in the right position if I roll my pelvis further forward, which takes the bow out of my lower back. It does have your pressure points on the saddle further forward, and you may also need to tweak the seat position accordingly — and be sure to not put too much weight on the base of your dick for too long, unless you like that prolonged feeling of numbness, that is!
This is a bigger issue for me on the road bike, since I tend not to sit in one position for long on the trail anyway.
BTW, I have always found (on both road and train bikes) that my preferred saddle position is somewhat more forward than indicated by the plumb bob method. Don’t be afraid to experiment with what works best for you.
Yeah, I also used to ride barefoot as a kid. It did teach me to keep my inside pedal up on the turns — had to learn the hard way, and still have one toenail that has never grown back properly, some 50 years later!
I don’t understand why so many people seem to have so much homophobia about wearing spandex — first, I don’t understand why anyone would think a cyclist was gay because he was wearing it, and second, I don’t understand why anyone would care if they did.
Maybe it is because I live in an area where cyclists (road and mountain) are very common, so seeing men wearing spandex shorts is hardly remarkable. But from a functional point of view, nothing else works as well. And to me, it is even more an issue mountainbiking than on the road — who wants to keep snagging his crotch (well, the crotch of his shorts) in the seat while trying to move around on the bike, or who wants to snag a pants leg on a passing branch on a narrow trail?
Living at about 5,500 ft elevation in Utah, I cannot say that I notice any difference at all due to elevation between sea level and at least 8,000 ft. On the other hand, I was in Colorado last weekend, where my rides (road bike this time) started at 8,500 ft and went to well over 10,000 ft, and I did notice that my heart rate was considerably higher. But I could still climb at much the same rate.
I can imagine it would be different were I not already acclimatized however.
For certain, hydration does become an issue though. Not just due to the elevation, but also because the air in much of the western mountains is extremely dry.
Seems like a really bad idea to put 24" wheels on a bike made for 26" and really should not be necessary. My daughter who is 4′ 11" has no problem with her old Trek with 26"
Might be gearing, although your gears sound pretty low to me — certainly a lot lower than anything I ride.
These days I am more of a roadie than a hard core mtn biker, but my idea is that there is no reason to ride any differently on the road or trail, on hills vs flats, from a bio-mechanical perspective anyway (there may be different compromises for aerodynamics, comfort or bike handling reasons, of course). That means, assuming you have the available gears, riding at the same cadence, and same degree of exertion on climbs as on the flats. So, if you are most efficient at a fast cadence, you may well need some lower gear options. For me, I am most efficient at a relatively slow (60-70) cadence and seldom get into my lowest available gears, whether on the road or trail. But it seems most people do better at a faster cadence.
I suggest you use your bike computer and a heart rate monitor, and find a moderate, steady grade that makes you work fairly hard. Start with whatever gearing feels most natural to you, note your speed and heart rate. Then, while maintaining constant speed, shift to bigger and smaller gears and note the change in heart rate. Keep this up until you determine what gearing gives you the lowest hr for that speed, and then measure your cadence. Repeat this under other conditions to verify that this is the cadence at which you are most efficient.
A lot of what you probably need is just more practice on hills, in part to learn how to best pace yourself, what cadence works best, etc. Of course, weight is the big enemy for climbing, so getting the kilos off of your body and your bike are what really helps. One of the reasons I still ride an old ti framed hardtail.
I am ready to try it soon, actually did try the ghetto method (with duct tape to seal the spoke nipple holes) but couldn’t get the (wire) bead to seat. Was told that wire beads usually don’t work. They are cheap crappy tires anyway, although they don’t work badly, so I will probably try with one of the more inexpensive tubeless tires on the market, although I am told that most folding tires will work.
If that works OK for me, I will try it on on road bike next — f’ing hate patching tires alongside the road! 😄
Nobody I have talked to who uses tubeless tries to fix the (rare) flats on the trail — they use a spare tube and wait until they are back home to fix the tubeless.
I went clipless 20 years ago, and have never looked back. I can well imagine there might be reasons to prefer flats, but I have never found myself wishing I was using them! Aside from improved pedaling efficiency, I have found them almost mandatory for any kind of jumps or other technical riding, and the few times I have ridden without them (eg on someone else’s bike), I feel totally inept for anything other than smooth trails.
A couple things, though. Mostly, you want to get comfortable with getting into and out of them before anything at all technical — I found this didn’t take long, but you don’t want to have to look down at your feet to get clipped in, while negotiating a steep downhill switchback, and you don’t want to have to be consciously remembering how to get out, as your bike threatens to toss you off a steep bank!
I recently switched from SPD to Crank Bros Egg Beaters, and like them, but I am right now running them on my road bike to be sure that their slightly different engagement and disengagement becomes second nature — and, BTW, I like them well enough that I plan to keep them for my road bike as well.
