1st official ride out....

[Innes]

MJ , I've just been out to the garage to have a look at the forks. There doesn't seem to be any way to adjust them. What I thought were adjusters on the fork tops just turned out to be plugs. Should've known being it being a bargain basement bike. Hey Ho, as long as I get my fitness up and waistline down, it can't be all that bad lol.

 

[Ticktockmy]

How much of a drama is it to change to rigid forks from susp forks. On my ride out yesterday when I had to get up out of the seat, I just bounced on the suspension and felt I was wasting a great amount of energy on keeping myself and the bike stable and also the forks just soaked up my efforts. Any thoughts?... as I'm beginning to think I should've shelled out more for a more suitable machine.

As you get more used to cycling, you will find that you will need less to get out of the saddle, learning to use your gears to take the strain means less strain on the frame, Bottom Bracket, chain drive. It all takes time. What make of forks does your bike have? this help other peeps to give advise.

 

[Innes]

As you get more used to cycling, you will find that you will need less to get out of the saddle, learning to use your gears to take the strain means less strain on the frame, Bottom Bracket, chain drive. It all takes time. What make of forks does your bike have? this help other peeps to give advise.

 

[Innes]

They're not of a specific make mate, bargain basement.

 

[TheSoulReaver03]

How much of a drama is it to change to rigid forks from susp forks. On my ride out yesterday when I had to get up out of the seat, I just bounced on the suspension and felt I was wasting a great amount of energy on keeping myself and the bike stable and also the forks just soaked up my efforts. Any thoughts?... as I'm beginning to think I should've shelled out more for a more suitable machine.

Honestly, unless you're a pro cyclist or going for 110% performance, or both, I'd say they're not that big of a deal.

My MTB has both fork and frame suspension. Unable to lock out the former because I broke the lockout switch off years ago (probably fell somewhere on grass). As for the latter, I made it as hard as I could and It still sent me a bit up and down at every single pedal stroke. I switched to 26'' road tyres (still wide as hell but a bit better performance than knobby off-road tyres) and riding 12 kilometers to school and another 12 on the way back with an all-time average of 30km/h took some effort but caused no problems whatsoever. The forks don't take away too much of the effort. Hell, I could even keep up with cyclists for a few miles on knobbies, although I felt like my legs are gonna explode.

My advice would be to keep riding on a bit more before you decide to invest a lot of money into a road bike. They cost way more than MTBs. Of course, if you don't have money problems then go ahead.

 

[User16625]

There sure are but its nice to look down and see how fast your going { wouldn't want to set any speed cameras off. }

This used to be an actual goal of mine. I ended up doing 39mph in a 30mph zone past one of those speed camera vans. Nothing ever came of it, but was very satisfying nonetheless. Whats really weird is that 30mph zone used to be a 40. Suddenly riding 39 mph is completely dangerous whereas before, it was perfectly safe in the exact same circumstances.

Also am I the only one that tends to work harder going downhill than uphill? Going uphill I find any significant increase in effort results in negligible gains in speed. I like chasing big numbers on my speedo and this is done best on downhills. For this reason I just stick it in my lowest ratio and plod along going uphill. Im Evel Knevel when going down them.