Comments for Mountain Bikes Apart

Comment on Illiotibial Band Syndrome – Mountain Biking Knee Injury by Matt

Matt — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:14:52 +0000

Hello Colin! Any updates to your knee situation? I did a 15 mile muddy rooty ride yesterday and noticed a sharp pain on the outside of my left knee. It wasn’t bad during the ride, but an hour later, I almost lost my footing when my knee tried to lock up. This happened several other times yesterday and then again today. It comes and goes and I have no idea what to expect.

Comment on Greg Minnaar 5:10 Mountain Biking Shoes Review by Colin

Colin — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:56:18 +0000

Thanks for getting in touch Gavin, great info there, and I’m sure it’ll be useful to everyone else reading the site!

Yep, I’m still on my flats – riding my Greg Minnaar 5:10s at the moment. I’m looking to upgrade my pedals though. I’ve been looking at a few of the ultra thin flat pedals that you get these days. It’s one of my few complaints about flats – they don’t have catch on rocks when you don’t want them to, certainly more than the more-streamline clipless variety.

Those Tioga no-axel ones look pretty sexy…. might get myself a pair of those!

Keep on riding those flats, and keep in touch on here – let me know how you’re getting on with them!

Colin

Comment on Mountain Bike Race Calendar 2012 by Dean Stacey

Dean Stacey — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:16:30 +0000

Hi Colin.

Please can you contact me on the suppied e-mail address.

Ta
Dean

Comment on Greg Minnaar 5:10 Mountain Biking Shoes Review by Gavin Scott

Gavin Scott — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:34:32 +0000

Hi Colin,

Im really enjoying your articles on your website.
You still riding on your flats?
For years I’ve been riding with clipless pedals and been getting on great and there was a brief moment in my clipless career I decided to try out flats(at this point I was still riding hardtails and would only venture onto red graded trails) and I just used my normal trainers with them.
First few outings my feet were bouncing off them all the time and I whacked my shins with the pedals- lovely painful experience.
So it was back to clipless and couple years on my ridng started progessing and I managed to save up and by a decent long travel xc bike.
Over the last year and half my riding has been rapidly improving and my style of riding has been leaning towards the aggresive side and I’ve wanted to do bigger stuff, but I’ve felt one thing has been holding me back- being clipped in!

First started to notice this on some tight small tight berms when I’ve been attacking them at some speed but needing the reasurance of having a foot off the pedal, but getting clipped in again once you come out of the berm on rough ground at high speed isnt easy to do sometimes!

Now I’ve just bought a Santa Cruz Nomad 160mm travel bike and the first thing I did was buy a pair of Five Ten’s.
Its amazing how they stick to the pedals! Next best thing to being clipped in!

The mistake I made a few years back was to use normal trainers that had a hard rubber compund- that was no use whatsoever!

I think this will help transform my riding tenfold and do really recommend that people thinking about trying flats will not be dissapointed as long as they have the correct shoes like the Five Tens.

A match made in heaven: DMR Vault Pedals and Five Ten shoes.

To be honest I’ve only been out on my new bike twice but have had no probs in switching from clipless to flats and they are only giving me more confidence.

If I was just doing cross country riding- I probably would stick to clipless, but for All Mountain or downhill it has to be flats for me.

Comment on SMBLA Trail Cycle Leader Training – Day 2 – Leading on the TCL by Gavin Scott

Gavin Scott — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:58:13 +0000

Hi Colin,

just stumbled across your webstite today- very well done and enjoyable to read

Thanks,

Gavin

Comment on Finding the Best Bike Rack or Carrier for your Car by Peter Astle

Peter Astle — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:30:32 +0000

Re Pros of Bike Roof Rack
“+can lock bike to rack and rack to car for best theft prevention”
Left my bike for less than 5 mins locked on Thule 591 – bike stolen that quickly.
Wheel straps cut and lock left intact and closed but no bike!

Comment on The Best Places to Mountain Bike in Australia by Tracey

Tracey — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:36:41 +0000

Hi Colin, for something a bit different we take our mountain bikes on any of the 4WD tracks we can find in Oz. We get a few odd looks from the other 4WD and the Roos. I’ll be blogging about it soon

Comment on Flat Pedals vs Clipless pedals – Why I’m moving back to flats by Donna Singleton

Donna Singleton — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:30:10 +0000

Thanks for the article. My BF insists I move “up” and clip in, I’m like “why the heck do I want to be tied to my bike? If I take a spill I don’t want to be tangled up with the bike too.” To me, tying on is only a good idea if your riding a bull or bronc, and even then it’s pretty scketchy.

Comment on Build a homemade headset press for bike building by Gerry

Gerry — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:19:51 +0000

I need to try that out! I’ve been sending my bike off to the shop to get the headset fitted for the past few years – it just seems a bit too risky to do myself. I’ve toyed with buying a headset press, but building my own headset press sounds like a much better idea!

Thanks dude!

Comment on Flat Pedals vs Clipless pedals – Why I’m moving back to flats by Colin

Colin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:22:25 +0000

Cheers Andrew,

I have a couple of bails this weekend that made me even more glad I wasn’t on clipless pedals. Descending a skinny on the Red run at Glentress, I just went a bit wide and had to get off. I jumped clear of the bike easily with my flat pedals, but if I was clipped in I’d have been sliding down that 45 degree slope on my face, with my bike on top of me.

I’ll be sticking with the flats for a while
Colin