Reprogramming
Cycling is my heroin and I’m a gearhead. I can justify almost any cycling related purchase on the grounds ‘it’s for my bike’. Carbon wheels, got them, a couple of sets and I want more. Oakleys, yep, prism road and trail, life changing. Oval chain rings on all my bikes, because I had to. You get the gist.
At the beginning to of 2014 my attitude to cycling was very different. I rode to keep fit and thin, but it was still the thing I loved in life. Back then I had two bikes, a Ribble winter trainer for all season road riding, and a Stumpjumper FSR, an off-road workhorse. If something broke or wore out it would get replaced with the cheapest suitable replacement, as a result my bikes were slowly getting downgraded.
Talking mountain bikes, I was a cross country purist. If I’m being honest, I’d say I was a bit of a prat. My idea of what defined the ideal mountain bike and how it should be ridden was very different to how I think now. Back then I thought bikes had to be as light as possible, particularly wheels, and especially tyres. I rode up hills as fast as I could, and descents were for recovery. Riding position was set to achieve the most efficient pedalling dynamics, that was paramount, because that’s where the speed came from. Handlebars should be low, stems long and seats should be high, and under no circumstances should it be moved because that would upset your pedalling style and ruin everything. As for jumps, well they just waste your precious energy.
When it came to buying new equipment I was appalled at the cost of everything; “£50 for a tyre, I’m not paying that!” I was a skinflint, so the attitude of the above paragraph was compromised from the get go. I was fundamentally flawed. I wanted light, but I wasn’t prepared to pay for it.
I’d got that way because I’d been away from the sport for a while, not so much away, just not fully engaged. When I was fully engaged, a decade or so before, I was working in the industry so I could rummage about in bike shop backrooms, do favours for people in the business and do the odd deal to get the kit I wanted at a price I could afford. I was isolated from the real cost of the sport. Then there’s inflation and improved technology to figure into the equation. My 1990’s mind-set was that a top end fork would set you back £350 to £400, but that fork had 25 or, if you were lucky, 28mm stanchions and a whopping 50mm of travel, yeah a whole 2 inches! A top end fork in 2014 was very different beast, but all I saw was the £800+ price tag.
So what happened, how did I become a hopeless gear addict? How did my enthusiasm turn to obsession?
Strava was the catalyst that really got the reaction going. All those numbers, all that data, all so public. The public side was a crucial step for my transition as well. It was the first place where I signed up as Lulu. I was a woman on a bike, until you looked at the gender, which was anomalously male. I was already becoming a data head, but there was another significant factor in my development.
My first love is mountain biking. If I had to ditch all my bikes bar one, I’d keep my hardtail. You can do it all with a hardtail. I’ve even seen someone do a time trial on a hardtail, and set a decent time. But the problem with mountain biking is mud. Or rather cleaning it off you bike after a ride, washing it out of your kit and the damage it does. So in the late summer of 2014 I bit the bullet and booked my first MTB holiday in Spain, it was also my first trip abroad as Lulu.
Initially my interest in mountain biking was rekindled when I toured New Zealand in 2007. I kept seeing bikes on the tops of cars and I thought they were downhillers. Anything with riser bars and disc brakes must be a downhiller, right? It was where I saw my first dropper post, but then the beauty of it was lost on me. I wasn’t a downhiller so I wasn’t interested. I mean, what is the point of dropping your seat? I’d been riding in a bubble, all alone since before the turn of the century. Not only did I expect bike kit to cost the same as it did in the 90’s, but my attitude and understanding of the MTB world was stuck in that mind-set too.
When I got to Queenstown I ventured onto some of the local trails but my MTB-come-tourer, drop bars and all, was woefully inadequate. When I got to Wanaka I hired a bike and did some dirt riding. Looking back those trails were pretty tame, but it was enough to get my interest back. I spent the rest of my tour dreaming of getting back out on the trails when I got home.
Back to 2014 and I’m in the Sierra Nevada with Pure Mountain. The sun is shining, the beer is free and the trails are fantastic. I’m really enjoying the holiday, but my five year old Stumpy is struggling. The other guests did the right thing and hired the lovely, sparkly red Canyons Pure Mountain were using as fleet bikes, all set up for the local trails. I took my own bike because it was cheaper, and my stingy attitude bit me on the arse. My tyres were shot, but I insist on keeping them going. And my inner tubes had more repairs than a patchwork quilt. It’s hot, very hot, and all those patches keep peeling of my tubes. I’m getting flat after flat, after flat, and it’s very embarrassing. Then my seat collapses. It’s the tipping point, and I decide to hire a bike to finish the holiday. Tim sorts me out with a Giant Trance, a remainder from a previous year’s hire fleet. I’m dissapointed at first, as I’ve never been a fan of Giants. I was hoping for a Canyon because they looked lovely. And guess what, it’s got one of those stupid dropper post thingies, insanely wide handlebars and big fat, ridiculously knobbly tyres. After a few minutes in the saddle the first climb is dealt with and I’m thinking ‘it climbs well’. Then on the first descent I’m converted. I instantly get the dropper post, the wide bars and fat tyres. My old mindset is disengaged and a new one is taking it’s place.
I knew I had to do something about my bike. My initial reaction is buy a new one, but Tim at Pure Mountain persuades me that my bike is basically solid, with a bit of fettling it will be as good as anything. He says I should get a dropper post, wide bars, a shorter stem and some decent tyres, then I’ll be flying. When I got home I took Tim’s advice and went a bit further. I decided to go 1x on the drivetrain as well, and I bought a set of Carbon wheels. And that’s how my gear addiction began.
That week in Spain I went from an XC purist to an All Mountain nut. The combination of new kit and Strava was like sugar and fat. Taken in isolation neither is very nice, but mix the two togethers and you get cakes, candy, toffee and fudge, all that stuff you can’t stop eating! A refurbed bike and a hunger for throwing myself down hills as fast as I could is exactly the circumstance Strava was built for, quantifiable data. I had to prove the expense was worthwhile, that it had made me quicker, and the best way to do that was through improved sector times. I’d only been on Strava couple of months and I was hooked.
A couple of years later and Tim’s reprogramming is complete. Descents are for pushing to your limits, and climbs are for recovering on. Bikes are robust. Tyres are fat and heavy. Suspension is what I would have once considered energy robbing soft and I’m loving it!
Lulu-R's Cycling Times 