Today I did my first 20 mile (33km) ride on my hardtail XC bike. I learned how to ride a bike about 1.5 months ago, but I’ve been riding pretty consistently since I learned. I ride exclusively in the city, it’s a very walkable city, but the paths aren’t always the best. I did 33km in 2 hours 53 minutes, not including breaks for water or to eat.
I see people saying that 10MP/H (16KM/H) average is a good average to shoot for, but i can’t even get my average above 7.1MPH (11.5KM/H), even on shorter rides. What am I doing wrong here? How are people going so freaking fast on bikes in cities?
City riding is slow.
Pump up your tyres.
Go at whatever speed you like.
Will I get a dented rim or a popped tire if I go down stairs at 50-55PSI? The tire is rated to 65.
You learned how to ride a bike a month and a half ago and you’re already talking about going down stairs? I’m not gonna tell you you’re wrong, but I will say that’s pretty damn adventurous!
I’d suggest getting some more experience so you develop some feel for how different tire pressures work (and more importantly, how shifting your weight forwards and backwards works and other bike-control stuff like that) before trying that. But then again, I’ve been riding since I was a kid and I still shy away from stairs so what do I know?
I’ve gone down stairs, but only the kind that are sort of long (as in three stairs, but the space between the stairs is long as opposed to the three stairs being one after the other. It is pretty scary as I have trouble getting over the back wheel (maybe my saddle is too wide?The reviews I read about the bike said the saddle that came with it was terrible, so I’ve been riding on this saddle).
Looks like the seatpost may be backwards, so you might be sitting closer to the handlebars and bottom bracket than you should be. Can you give us a picture from another angle, from behind and lower?
I put the bike together myself out of the box, so that’s certainly possible.
Yeah, you should remove the saddle and turn that thing around, then re-attach the saddle pretty much level. I would not want to spend more than half an hour sitting on that setup. You may be able to simply loosen the nut and turn the part that is currently clamping the seat post 180 degrees to the front, no need to remove the saddle from the clamp.
Rule of thumb is this: If you turn the pedals to a horizontal position (let’s say the left one facing forward), the part of the leg just below your kneecap should be pretty much perpendicular to the pedal’s axis. If your saddle is too far forward or backward, you will not be able to pedal efficiently. It’s probably part of the reason why you cannot go very fast since you’re unable to use the leverage of the crank arms that way.
About saddle height: If your saddle height is correct, you can turn one pedal to its lowest point and place your heel on it. If your leg is then just slightly bent (shouldn’t be straight, but not a significant angle either), you’re probably pretty spot on.
As an avid cyclist, I can say that those are just pretty good rules of thumb. With my experience as a rider, pretty minor adjustments make a big difference and I tweak new bikes or parts as I go based on how it feels. I also learned from bad experience (knee and achilles heel problems from too high a saddle, for instance), so what I wrote above is a good starting point for you until you start getting a feel for such things with more kilometers under your belt. Welcome to the club, champ!
I think it’s more likely your saddle is too high or your handlebar reach is too long.
Saddle seems to be the right height according to the basic fit test I’ve seen (pedaling with heel should have almost full knee lockout. Could be my handlebar reach is too long, especially considering I had my handlebar sweep upside down until a kind person here pointed that out to me :D
No. Those issues will more likely be caused by smashing the wheels into a curb or stairs going up them and not using your weight over the bike to help the wheels up. A hard impact like that can cause a pinch flat if you are running tubes of possibly damage the rims too depending on the severity of the hit.
Tyre pressures really do depend on what type of riding you will be doing and your terrain.
50-55 is good for trying to stop pinch flats if you are running tubes and for running around on pavements and the like keeping your speed up by trying to have less deformation in the tyre to make your rolling resistance marginally less.
Conversely if you are riding off road then you want less pressure as that helps the tyre deform more, increasing the amount of tyre that is in contact with the ground at once and there by increasing your grip levels.
Damage like that is more dependant on the way you ride your bike and tackle obstacles as no amount of pressure is going to protect your rims in your just plough through objects. If I’m riding on tarmac with my MTB then I’ll usually add a bit more pressure but only up to about 30psi (this is tubeless though bear in mind) and stair sets are not an issue.
Got it! I put the rear tire to 55PSI and the front tire to 50PSI. Would making the suspension softer in the front further prevent possible damage?
Not really. Going down stairs you shouldn’t have much weight over the front and the suspension won’t be doing that much work until you get to the bottom where it will compress as you hit the flat. If anything if you went too soft you could hit the bottom of the stair set and bottom out the forks which opens up another can of worms.
If the suspension is working fine for you right now I’d leave it as it is.
As long as you deweight the back wheel as you go down the stairs you’ll be fine.
What does that even mean?
When you go down stairs you want your weight backwards over the rear wheel which is gonna add more weight to the back wheel. To “deweight” the rear wheel you’d need to lean forward which is only going to end in pain going down a stair set.
edit are you referring to going up curbs as opposed to downstairs? In which case this would be relevant?
I’m also struggling to understand 😅
Don’t listen to him, he’s giving you a recipe for going over your front handlebars hard.
I believe I’ve done this once before trying to go over a curb - not fun.
Correct. You want most of your weight over the front wheel because if you’re over the back wheel you bounce harder and you’ll get a lovely snake bite pinch flat for your troubles. You aren’t going to be completely over the front wheel just a little bit to get the back wheel lighter since you have no rear suspension.
I ride enduro on a hardtail mtb. I used to get the dreaded snake bites until i learned how to ride stairsets.
⚠️ Dangerous advice. As others are saying, this is a recipe for going over your handlebars and getting yourself hurt. Check out some “how to mountain bike”videos.
ERM what? “Most of your weight over the front wheel” I’m sorry but this is just blatently wrong and goes against the physics of what is happening. If most of your weight is over the front wheel you are going over the bars.
Then you say you aren’t going to be completely over the front wheel, just a little. But you just said most of your weight.
What you are saying makes absolutely no sense and isn’t even consistent across your message.
This is bad advice that could get someone hurt man. Not cool.
I ride every day and down a set of stairs. If he wants more in depth info he can go watch a video.
What i’m saying makes sense if you’ve ridden any features that require you to deweight your back wheel. Most of your weight will be over the front wheel but you yourself will be mostly center on the bike. This isn’t rocket science. If he wants to gap the stairs (doubtful since he said he learned to ride a month ago) then i’d say lean back in preperation for a bunny hop but since he isn’t then the easiest thing he can do to not fuck up his bike is to lean forward a tiny bit as he descends. He’ll try it a few times and figure out where his balance point is since it’s different for everyone. until he figures it out he’ll probably pop a few tires.
Biking over features can get you hurt, if you only take advice from one internet stranger you’re asking for trouble anyways.