About
As far as I can tell most people tend to fall into one of two categories - those who prefer to enjoy their past-times retrospectively and those who prefer to enjoy them in the moment. Let me elaborate. I watched my brother in-law run a half marathon recently. Stood somewhere just after the 10km mark, I didn’t see a single person run past me who I would have said looked like they were having a great time. For these people, the enjoyment from running a half marathon seems to come from the sense of achievement once it is completed, of pushing ones-self to the limit and trying to improve on previous efforts. Running a half-marathon did not appear to be an end itself. Rather it is the feelings that follow that appear to be the attraction for many. All good, each to their own and whatever floats your boat.
Then there are those past-times where you can find yourself literally laughing out-loud in the moment with the shear brilliance of it all. For me, this is one of the biggest attractions of mountain biking. Riding along with a stupid grin stuck to my face, preferably alongside some mates who are wearing similar expressions. Most of the people I know who ride mountain bikes do it for this reason - it is simple, honest fun at the point of use.
Then there are those past-times where you can find yourself literally laughing out-loud in the moment with the shear brilliance of it all. For me, this is one of the biggest attractions of mountain biking. Riding along with a stupid grin stuck to my face, preferably alongside some mates who are wearing similar expressions. Most of the people I know who ride mountain bikes do it for this reason - it is simple, honest fun at the point of use.
Absorbed in the here and now
Importantly, as soon as you introduce an element of competition into a past-time, as soon as it becomes ‘sport’, then you inevitably start to edge closer to retrospective-enjoyment. So even something like mountain biking, whether it’s racing cross-country, enduro or downhill, once the stop-watch gets involved then fun becomes secondary to speed, and the two should never be confused.
Clearly, nothing is ever this simple, and most of us dabble with a bit of both ‘retrospective’ and ‘in-the-moment’ fun, even if we might tend towards one or the other most of the time. I’ll admit to checking my Strava segments after a ride to see if I’d managed to better my previous best and who doesn’t want to beat their mates to the bottom of the trail. Most of us float around in this grey area and the result is often an internal struggle that can end up in disappointment. Upgrades that promise greater speed, from which we often incorrectly infer more fun, too often result in the opposite.
Clearly, nothing is ever this simple, and most of us dabble with a bit of both ‘retrospective’ and ‘in-the-moment’ fun, even if we might tend towards one or the other most of the time. I’ll admit to checking my Strava segments after a ride to see if I’d managed to better my previous best and who doesn’t want to beat their mates to the bottom of the trail. Most of us float around in this grey area and the result is often an internal struggle that can end up in disappointment. Upgrades that promise greater speed, from which we often incorrectly infer more fun, too often result in the opposite.
Who doesn't want to beat their mates to the bottom of the trail?!?
You see fun is a pretty hard thing to measure and in some ways an even harder thing for someone like a bike manufacturer to sell. So, as with many things in life, we rely on proxies as a gauge for assessing how much fun something is likely to be. This is why the challenge of having more fun on a bike is often simplified down to the challenge of going faster, as this is something that is far easier to quantify. If you believe the hype then a faster bike should be a more fun bike. And so the mountain bike, something that should be a relatively simple toy for doing big skids and hitting berms until your tyres squirm, can quickly become a technological marvel that costs many thousands of pounds. I’m not knocking better brakes or lock-on grips, but sometimes I get the feeling that everyone thinks they should be riding an enduro race bike just to get to the shops otherwise they couldn’t possibly hope to be anything other than miserable.
Charlie the Bike Monger wrote a wonderful article in which he did a far better job of explaining something along the same lines…
As a slight aside, it’s interesting how road riding, at least in this country, seems to be focusing ever more on the importance of an individuals suffering and pain as an end in itself. A number of brands seem to be falling over themselves to promote their products in this way through yet another grainy, black and white photograph. I love my road bike and I love road riding, but I seem to be part of an ever-dwindling minority who do it with a smile on their face. I love that fantastic feeling of mechanical efficiency, especially when part of a group of riders working together (I’m still impressed that a person on a bicycle is the most efficient way for anything to move from A to B, beating anything in nature or engineering) and the childish sense of freedom and exploration that a road bike can offer. Sadly, most people seem more interested in ‘burying themselves’.
The upshot of all this musing is that I try very hard to keep my bikes at ‘peak-fun’. It’s hard because I’m just as easily seduced as anyone else by more shiny suspension and more exotic carbon fibre, much of which will at best make no discernible difference to my enjoyment, but is probably more likely to actually make my local trails less rather than more enjoyable . I’m not saying that we should all go back to riding cantilever brakes and 1.9 inch tyres, but for me the attraction of mountain biking is all about being absorbed in the challenge of trying to control my bike over technical terrain. A fantastically articulate chap called Chris Harris captured this perfectly in relation to something completely different whilst having fun doing what he does so well in this video at around 14:40.
As ever, there’s a balance to be struck. I’ve tried stripping things right back - riding rigid single speeds around Welsh trail centres - and can honestly say that it was a pretty unpleasant experience. Equally, I’ve ridden big full suspension bikes that have flattered my limited skills but also sanitised my local trails. For me ‘peak fun’ arrives when you have just the right bike for your abilities and the conditions. This will vary from person to person and from location to location, but I find the hardest bit is being honest with myself when it comes to deciding what I really need my bike to do.
And so, in an incredibly long-winded fashion, I’ve finally gotten around to the reason for starting Davey Push Bikes. If you’ve stuck with my ramblings this far then firstly congratulations, and secondly I would hope that you now know the sort of riding that I enjoy. Davey Push Bikes is simply a way for me to create things that help me maximise the fun that I have on my bike. They won’t be for everyone, but I suspect that you’ll know if they’re for you.
Charlie the Bike Monger wrote a wonderful article in which he did a far better job of explaining something along the same lines…
As a slight aside, it’s interesting how road riding, at least in this country, seems to be focusing ever more on the importance of an individuals suffering and pain as an end in itself. A number of brands seem to be falling over themselves to promote their products in this way through yet another grainy, black and white photograph. I love my road bike and I love road riding, but I seem to be part of an ever-dwindling minority who do it with a smile on their face. I love that fantastic feeling of mechanical efficiency, especially when part of a group of riders working together (I’m still impressed that a person on a bicycle is the most efficient way for anything to move from A to B, beating anything in nature or engineering) and the childish sense of freedom and exploration that a road bike can offer. Sadly, most people seem more interested in ‘burying themselves’.
The upshot of all this musing is that I try very hard to keep my bikes at ‘peak-fun’. It’s hard because I’m just as easily seduced as anyone else by more shiny suspension and more exotic carbon fibre, much of which will at best make no discernible difference to my enjoyment, but is probably more likely to actually make my local trails less rather than more enjoyable . I’m not saying that we should all go back to riding cantilever brakes and 1.9 inch tyres, but for me the attraction of mountain biking is all about being absorbed in the challenge of trying to control my bike over technical terrain. A fantastically articulate chap called Chris Harris captured this perfectly in relation to something completely different whilst having fun doing what he does so well in this video at around 14:40.
As ever, there’s a balance to be struck. I’ve tried stripping things right back - riding rigid single speeds around Welsh trail centres - and can honestly say that it was a pretty unpleasant experience. Equally, I’ve ridden big full suspension bikes that have flattered my limited skills but also sanitised my local trails. For me ‘peak fun’ arrives when you have just the right bike for your abilities and the conditions. This will vary from person to person and from location to location, but I find the hardest bit is being honest with myself when it comes to deciding what I really need my bike to do.
And so, in an incredibly long-winded fashion, I’ve finally gotten around to the reason for starting Davey Push Bikes. If you’ve stuck with my ramblings this far then firstly congratulations, and secondly I would hope that you now know the sort of riding that I enjoy. Davey Push Bikes is simply a way for me to create things that help me maximise the fun that I have on my bike. They won’t be for everyone, but I suspect that you’ll know if they’re for you.