Your body Articles

2019 is a great year to be a mountain biker! The industry is finally making bikes that are safer and more fun to ride than older bikes. Usually, year to year bikes don't change that much, but in 2019 the industry as a whole is catching on to some design ideas that...

Life takes work, lots of work! I used to train so I could race well, then I stopped racing and stopped training, mostly due to nagging back problems.When your body hurts, it hurts to train and a downward spiral happens. You stop training which feels better but you get...

As you probably know, I love mountain biking but mountain biking isn’t all good, it can be bad for you. I am not talking about crashing (which is definitely bad for you) but simply riding mountain bikes. Mountain biking, like many sports, can be PART of a very healthy lifestyle. I stress the word “part” because mountain biking should not be your only form of exercise and you need to take care of its ill effects.

The idea for this article came when I saw two very fit looking road cyclists get off their bike and then hobble to the door. They could barely walk! They were hunched over, stiff and very wobbly! Luckily, because mountain bikers stand, absorb shock and are more dynamic than road cyclists …

When I purchased my first two mountain bikes the guys at the shop told me to tilt my seat slightly toward the rear so I “would slide back to the more comfortable part of the saddle and take weight off my hands”. Turns out, they were right, if you only ride retaliative flat terrain!

Most companies are still missing the final ingredient which is a steeper seat tube angle so we aren’t sitting over the rear wheel! My bike has 74 degree seat tube angle, while forward thinking companies like the Canfield Brothers Toir has 77 degree seat tube angle, putting your more over the bottom bracket than the rear tire. This makes climbing much easier!