You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
By serious, I mean likely to be riding an expensive/quality mtb... waddaya reckon, a 1:2 ratio perhaps? Or better?
There are far more people serious about mtb than are on here.
STW is actually a very very small proportion of the mtb population in the UK
2.38
Including myself? -6.
plenty of people without expensive bikes are serious mtbers.
define expensive bike?
Small % I would have thought
STWers make up a very small proportion. I've never hooked up with anyone that's even heard of it, unless it was arranged on here 😐
well, not necessarily expensive, just quality you know? I kind of assumed it'd be a reasonabley high proportion?
As 29er sales show, a tiny percentage.
9
Plenty of people who ride expensive/quality MTB's aren't serious about it. 😉
What a truly weird idea for a thread.
well... I was just wondering, if you randomnly asked a group of MTB'ers if they frequented STW, roughly how many might say yes... say a group of 10, randomnly met out on the trails like... just curious is all! 😕
Fair question. A fairly low number though - and as suggested above, it would depend on your definition of "serious".
Here's an illustration - how many folk on here ride Specialized MTBs? And yet how many do you see out on the trails?
if you randomnly asked a group of MTB'ers if they frequented STW, roughly how many might say yes
Well I certainly wouldn't admit to it. And I can't imagine why many would.
Of the 50 or so i've ridden with locally only 3 or 4 lurk on here.
Asking someone if they visit a forum definitely marks you out as socially-inpet in a social-situation. Hence you'd never ask someone that question.
I cannot class myself as serious about anything in particular but I do have an over forked boutique bicycle if that helps?
ay, I wouldn't ask it... but, was just wondering how popular STW is amongst the UK MTB fraternity, obviously not hugely so from the sounds of it...
Oh I finally get it [slaps head]. You excluding casual mountain bikers but including folk who ride as a regular pastime.
Not many.
Half the people I've encountered view STW as some sort of haunt of pedants and psychos and are nervous to post.
ernie_lynch - Member
if you randomnly asked a group of MTB'ers if they frequented STW, roughly how many might say yes
Well I certainly wouldn't admit to it.
Nor I.
Well, I seem to be in the habit of [s]picking up[/s] [b]guiding[/b] random people in Swinley Forest. Some of them have heard of/lurk on STW.
Seriously hope I haven't put them off. It's not every day you get shown around the woods by a mad woman on a silly bike. 🙄
People get frightened by this place, dunno why. 😉 But of course I only ride shonky bikes so what do I know?
What rubbish !so i'm not a serious mtber because I have not got the money to spend on flaash kit?
Half the people I've encountered view STW as some sort of haunt of pedants and psychos and are nervous to post.
Pretty spot on there atlaz!
Most people I know don't come on here, and the one's that have heard of it think its for nob ends
What rubbish !so i'm not a serious mtber because I have not got the money to spend on flaash kit?
Sorry, wasn't what I meant... was more trying to distinguish between the casual and the more 'serious' type that would most likely be on here...
What rubbish !so i'm not a serious mtber because I have not got the money to spend on flaash kit?
I think the OP was meaning proper mtbs as opposed to £100 boingy things.
Anyway, we're all middle class or champagne socialist here right?
It's not every day you get shown around the woods by a mad woman on a silly bike.People get frightened by this place, dunno why. But of course I only ride shonky bikes so what do I know?
I imagine that it's probably not the bike C_G, but the sight of a woman pushing a pram with a dead badger through the woods, which they find a bit scary.
Lol at Ernie 😆
It's my hair too I tell thee 🙄
I know lots of serious MTB'ers
(I decided this meant: [i]ride on lots of weekends, odd evenings, travelled to ride, and choosey about their kit[/i]).
From wealthy guys of expensive to cheap-ish bikes (very careful with their money), to good basic working guys on expensive to cheap-ish bikes, to young downhillers on very very expensive bikes and [b]none go on here[/b]!
A few know of it and some times ask me to find bits, even bikes but they are none on STW. So the ratio for me is about 60:1
out of the group of bloke i ride with, which there are 18, only myself and 1 more post on here.
the rest of the group take the pi55, they think i am a saddo and that the forum is full of saddo's.
pretty accurate i think............. 😆
Oh, I thought this was [b]the[/b] place for weirdos, saddos and the dispossessed?
Extra points for being a girlie too. 🙄
My experience is opposite to Lionheart and ton.
Only one of my friends rode mountainbikes before I was introduced ( by him) to STW.
I have actually made a series of real life friends thru the forum. I don't think I know any "serious MTBers" who are not on the forum
"its for nob ends"
[waves]
"Seriously hope I haven't put them off. It's not every day you get shown around the woods by a mad woman on a silly bike.
People get frightened by this place, dunno why. But of course I only ride shonky bikes so what do I know? "
Actually, you've made it sound a lot more attractive than it did before, and anyway, shonky bikes rule 🙂
"Serious about riding" and expensive bikes do not have to go hand in hand you know. Last time I was in Vancouver I met some guys who are far better riders than I could ever hope to be. Did they have the latest and greatest? Did they ****. They had functional bikes to do the job. As it should be.
Anyway, we're all middle class or champagne socialist here right?
Am I ****.
Closes his account!
you couldn't ask me, if I was a serious MTBer, I wouldn't stop to chat on the hills
Here's an illustration - how many folk on here ride Specialized MTBs? And yet how many do you see out on the trails?
i'm obviously being stupid here, but i have no idea how many folk on here ride specialized, what do you mean?
[i]"Serious about riding" and expensive bikes do not have to go hand in hand you know[/i]
Jeez, get over it ffs! How many times does the guy have to explain himself??
Here's an illustration - how many folk on here ride Specialized MTBs? And yet how many do you see out on the trails?
Hah! Just last week I commented on how every time I saw someone on a Spesh they seemed to be taking riding very seriously 😆
Is there a distinction between 'serious about bikes' and 'serious about riding'.
None of the people I ride with are regular posters on here but I think the above distinction is important.
I know guys who say they are serious about riding, they can talk endlessly about suspension set ups, tyre choice, the merits of stem length and seat angles, and they perpetually fettle with their expensive toys. To all intents and purposes they're very serious.... but do they ever really ride their bikes?
At the other end of the spectrum I know guys whose bikes have to got the the shop if their gears don't work. Who ride their bikes until they break and then replace with new. Their bikes are also typically expensive, but do they know the correct rebound and compression settings, no. They're much less serious about the sport, but are out riding far more and with much bigger grins on their faces.
That wasn't really the question though, was it?
I understood the question, but don't know the answer, so didn't bother blabbing on about serious/expensive/quality blah blah, as it wasn't what the OP was talking about. 😕
Yeah sorry DezB, I just wanted to have a mini rant on the subject.
Fed up of the 'serious riders' berating tyre selection, suspension set up etc etc... I'll see you on the hill... no I won't you'll be at home fretting over how many pins to run on your flats this week.
Ahhhhhh, and breathe.
I'm on here and I am truly serious. If you met me I would amaze you with my seriousness. If there was a chart for seriousness I would have been No1 for longer than that Robin Hood caterwauling song off of the 90s. I'm actually thinking of jacking in my job and becoming a seriousness consultant. Just a minor point but people who ride spesh are evidently not serious, otherwise they would have got decent bikes. TTFN, HTH, HAND.
i just looked up what serious means, and it can mean bad, i've not been on here long so i don't think i'm stw'er but i'm definately bad. and not in a bad meaning good way.
Judging by the pictures in the latest 'show us your ride' gallery, most people are buying cheap but well designed frames and highly customising them with niche parts. It's hard to get more 'hard core' than that. But then there's the spirit that emphasises riding over technology too. That's very STW.
To me, the real pleasure of MTB riding is highly solitary. It's fun to ride with a group, but setting yourself alone in a huge landscape, with just you and the next hill to climb, the next river to ford or kilometres of empty forest to overcome...that's what I find between the covers of STW.
Without getting in to discussion about the exact interpretation of a word, I'd say you have to be fairly serious about mountain biking to take part in a 24 hour race.
2500 or so riders at Mountain Mayhem.
How many STWers there ? 50 ? 100 ?
That makes 1:50 to 1:25 as a very rough guess.
[i]How many STWers there ? 50 ? 100 ?[/i]
Seriously?! There must be more than that..
I don't know.
I was just trying to remember how many posted on the "Who's going to MM thread" without bothering to search for it. 😕
Ah, you meant at Mayhem, not in total.
Riding round a muddy Staffordshire field is not serious at all. Serious people would rather staple their gonads to an electric fence than do that. That's a pretend event for people who only like to pretend to be serious when it doesn't encroach on their nice cosy being serious at work lives. True seriousness requires far more commitment. And Stella, although Guinness or Strongbow are acceptable alternatives.
Surely it's
"how many serious UK MTB'ers have jobs where they sit in front of computers all day ?"
HTH