When do you become a frequent MTB rider?
Portals such as StravaThe idea is to motivate bikers to cycle more. Inspired by the idea of showing yourself and others how many kilometres you cover each year, every trip to the bakery is recorded. Climbed another 1000 metres in altitude and spent two hours in the saddle? Add it to your frequent traveller account! Stay on the ball, keep going, collect kilometres, make distance - documenting your own mileage plays into the primal instinct of hunters and gatherers. But woe betide you if someone else has collected more! Compared to the heavy users of mountain biking, the average biker is more or less treading water. There is a huge performance gap between Sunday riders and real frequent riders. In a side-by-side comparison, even the distances travelled by seasoned BIKE editors seem small.
So what makes a biker a frequent traveller? Anyone who commutes to work, school or university by bike every day already fulfils an important frequent rider characteristic: consistency. Bikers with high mileage are not held back by harsh weather conditions or uncomfortable seasons. The frequent riders among the frequent riders are on their MTB 365 days a year - at Darkness, Wetnesscold, snow and heat, on public holidays, birthdays, working days, summer days and Winter days. Of course, every little helps, but if your daily cycle ride lasts at least 90 minutes, you'll cover an enormous amount of kilometres over time.
MTB frequent rider in the example: 430,000 metres in altitude/year
In BIKE 01/23 we present three MTB frequent riders and their equipment. Among them Melanie Mandel. The 33-year-old fought her way back onto the bike after a crash, because despite intense periods of anxiety on the downhill, she doesn't want to be deterred from her favourite hobby. In her opinion, the fact that she puts in 500 riding hours a year, i.e. a constant ten hours a week, is also due to the fact that she is constantly on the brakes on the downhill. Despite slow descents, Melanie covers around 8,000 kilometres and 120,000 metres of altitude per year. That is equivalent to the distance between Germany and South Korea as the crow flies and 13.5 times the distance from sea level to Mount Everest.
Edgar Brigel takes a completely different approach. His favourite elevation profile is triangular and pointed. An ambitious racing cyclist covers Edgar's 1600 annual kilometres in just one week. The fact that this route nevertheless adds up to 70,000 metres in altitude is due to the fact that Edgar likes to go steep. As a bike mountaineer, he covers around half of the altitude metres on foot - with his bike on his shoulders. In the 57-year-old's case, riding a lot means covering a lot of metres in altitude and depth over a short distance. On average, his annual kilometres have a gradient of 24 percent.
Clemens Riese is the constant among frequent mountain bike riders. The 36-year-old has been cycling every day - without interruption for three years now. He has now cycled an incredible 1200 days without a break. Clemens covers at least 1000 metres in altitude every day. In total, this adds up to 18,000 kilometres and 430,000 metres in altitude every year. These are figures that would make any biker's head spin and would take the average German around 60 years to cycle. Clemens' annual kilometres correspond to the distance between Germany and New Zealand as the crow flies. If he were to ride all the annual metres in altitude in one go, Clemens would climb from the surface of the earth to the boundary between the atmosphere and outer space. Every year, Clemens spends an incredible 800 hours on his bike. That's over two hours a day!
What does it mean to ride a lot of mountain bikes?
The physical aspect of being a frequent traveller is obvious. Anyone who covers such distances and heights is inevitably fit. The three frequent cyclists in our example are united by their desire for physical exertion. Melanie Mandel has great sporting ambition and regularly chases best times on Strava segments. Before her fall, she was successfully pacing herself in marathon races. Now she is driven to be the fastest woman in the area. What Edgar Brigel loves most about bike mountaineering is the combination of physical challenge and technical riding. Edgar has to be in top shape to stand at the summit of the most beautiful Alpine mountains on his bike. After a collapse on the Stoneman Miriquidi round Clemens Riese decided to cycle 1000 metres of altitude every day in order to avoid such low points in the future. As an IT specialist, he spends a lot of time at the computer in his job. For him, the daily rides are the perfect physical balance to the long hours of screen time.
Riding a lot also means spending a lot of time on the bike. Not everyone has such a flexible schedule, and the social environment also has to support such a passionate hobby. With a full-time job as a project consultant, Melanie has time for long tours, especially on Saturdays and Sundays. So it's a good thing that her partner Marc is a frequent cyclist himself. "If I didn't cycle so much, I'd be at home alone all the time!" smiles Melanie on this subject. Edgar is usually alone with his bike at the summit cross. The bike mountaineering scene is small. As a freelance editor for television, Edgar works in shifts. With enough motivation, he can manage six to seven hours of bike mountaineering twice a week during the snow-free season. Since the coronavirus, Clemens has been able to organise his home office appointments quite freely. A two-hour lunchtime ride is sacred to him. The extreme biker puts a lot of dedication into his intense hobby and everyday decisions are usually made in favour of bike time.
What material do frequent drivers use?
Hardly anyone is familiar with Signs of wear on the MTB better than frequent riders. With their riding performance, the material has to last thousands of kilometres. Of course, there are also frequent riders among professional bikers. They spend a lot of time on their bikes for sporting and professional reasons. However, those who are provided with a bike and accessories generally have less to worry about when it comes to wear and tear. Are Drive or brake pads wear out, new parts are fitted. However, if bikers ride a lot in their private lives, constant cycling in all weather conditions can quickly add up. In addition to function, the durability of parts is therefore the decisive selection criterion for frequent MTB riders.
Melanie puts on her BMC Twostroke Hardtail on a combination of low cost and high quality. The discs got too hot with cheap brake pads costing ten euros. That's why she only uses original brake pads in her Sram Level brakes. An inexpensive steel chainring wears much more slowly on her frequent rider bike than its lighter aluminium counterpart. On the other hand, the harder material of the Sram X01 Eagle cassette lasts longer than the wearing parts of cheaper groupsets. As Melanie rides all year round, her bike gets a lot of dirt, especially in winter. Nothing is more annoying on long tours than a rattling drivetrain. The carefree function of the wireless Sram GX Eagle AXS She is delighted with the drivetrain because, unlike mechanical parts, the gears change reliably and precisely even in the mud. Melanie relies on tubeless tyres for greater puncture resistance. To document her riding performance even more accurately, she uses a wattmeter crank from the German manufacturer Power2Max. This constantly provides all the necessary information, even in wet and cold conditions. "My bike has to be light. If I had a heavy all-mountain fully, I certainly wouldn't ride as much," says frequent rider Melanie. Her BMC Twostroke hardtail weighs 11.2 kilograms ready to ride.
When it comes to bike mountaineering, the choice of material is also a balancing act, as reliable parts are essential for survival. At the same time, the bike must not weigh too much to be easily shouldered. The Liteville 901 MK1 from Edgar weighs 13.5 kilograms. The tyres shouldn't weigh more than one kilo either. "For really great trails, you don't really need a chain. Instead, I can watch the tyres disintegrate," says bike mountaineer Edgar. He puts less than one bar of pressure in his Maxxis tyres. With this riding style, Edgar has to fit new tyres every 400 kilometres. Tyre grip is the difference between life and death, especially in technical alpine terrain. The same applies to braking power. Edgar relies on Magura MT7 Four-piston models with original pads and Trickstuff Dächle brake discs. He also has to replace the pads every 400 kilometres to ensure strong braking power at all times.
Clemens keeps himself entertained on his daily rides, especially with variety. "As I'm really on my bike every day, I can't miss out on the fun. The easiest way to achieve this is to switch from the hardtail file to the longtravel sofa, for example," says Clemens. That's why the frequent traveller is not only on several mountain bikes, but also on a road bike and a gravel bike. His riding performance is divided roughly equally between off-road and road. He does everything on his six bikes himself. With his Evil The Wreckoning LB Enduro, Clemes covers around 3000 kilometres and 80,000 metres in altitude every year. He also relies on a durable steel chainring.
It also combines a Sram GX 11-speed drivetrain with a Shimano XT cassette. In contrast to the Sram GX cassette, the wear-prone small sprockets on the Shimano can be replaced individually. If he had to dispose of the entire cassette every time, this would mean over 1000 euros in wear costs just for cassettes for frequent rider Clemens. Clemens built the wheels of his custom enduro bike himself using reliable DT Swiss components. Brass nipples are a tribute to the high mileage. According to Clemens' experience, aluminium nipples tend to weather in the salt and splash water of winter. Despite enduro use, a durable hard rubber compound from Maxxis is used on the rear wheel. He doesn't believe in lightweight construction. The parts on his 15.8-kilo Evil The Wreckoning LB must above all be stable and last a long time.
Jan Timmermann
Editor
