Why Do We Ride Bikes?

There’s always been this thing in mountain biking where everyone’s chasing more. More travel, lighter frames, carbon everything, BIGGER wheels - and now it’s e-bikes, bigger batteries, more power. Faster, further, better spec’d. It never really stops.

And don’t get us wrong, we love bike tech. We could stand around in the workshop for hours arguing about suspension kinematics and tyre casings while pretending we’re actually working… which, to be fair, is actually our job - so it’s fine. We do the geek.

But maybe we should be getting back to the fundamentals for a second and asking: what’s the actual reason we’re riding bikes? Why are we doing it? Is all this bigger, better, more powerful stuff really the most important thing?

Before we get into the “why”… we’ve got to talk about the dreaded “why not” - just so we can properly understand this really good (and slightly unhinged) thing we all do.

Because if you actually break it down… there’s a fair bit that sucks about riding bikes. 

The “why not”

It’s expensive.
Stuff breaks.
Your drivetrain can cost more than your first car. 
You crash yourself into trees for fun.
It’s freezing half the year.
You come home soaked, muddy and limping.
You spend all week working just to voluntarily pedal yourself up a hill so you can be terrified for six minutes on the way back down.

So why do we keep doing it?

We asked Mat

And beware...this might be the deepest we’ve ever seen him go.

“Because I like messing around in the forest.

There’s the strength and fitness side of it. It’s risky. I can drink more beer afterwards. Not necessarily in that order.

But really, it’s the feeling of being out in the woods with your mates (if you have them). There’s a comradeship to it, otherwise it's just as good on your own.

I also just genuinely love bikes. The tech, the way they look, the way they feel on trail. I love how they’re constantly evolving and changing, even though that can also be bloody annoying sometimes.

Mountain biking’s hugely psychological too. It’s a proper head game. If your head’s not in it, you’re not going to ride well. You’ve got to fully immerse yourself in the moment. You can’t be thinking about work, what’s for dinner, or that awkward thing you said to someone three days ago.

And every now and then you hit a flow state. That’s just the best feeling. Everything clicks. Everything flows. You stop fighting the trail and start moving with it. It feels like you’re taming the trail instead of surviving it.

That’s what keeps me coming back. You can ride every day and it’s never the same. Different weather, different dirt, different people, different forest feels. Sometimes you notice birds. Sometimes it’s just silence.

Sometimes riding’s about going fast. Sometimes it’s about slowing down. But mostly it’s about being outside, feeling alive, escaping the day to day and riding around on cheap bikes, sick bikes, e-bikes, rigid bikes, whatever you've got to ride, as long as it's riding.

Everyone rides for different reasons.

You have to do it for you.”

A rare moment of reflection from the Scotsman. We’re all quite emotional about it.

Sacha’s take

Ask ten riders why they ride bikes and you’ll get ten different answers.

So we asked Sacha.

As we all know he's a man of few words.

We figured this one was better in audio form.