kellboy

An interesting read. I agree with some of the points made by the author but alot of it is also opinion. I think it does boil down to where you ride and who with. I Have only been riding 4 or 5 months, and planned to get a small HT like a 4x bike for my local trails. Somehow I ended up buying a 6 inch travel Kona coiler deluxe 2007, While I still would love to own a HT and shorter travel bike, Im glad I got the bike I did, in the short time ive been riding Ive been fortunate enough to go to uplifts at Forest of Dean and Triscombe and be able to keep up with my mates on their trail full sussers. If i had gone for a hard tail theres simply very little chance I would enjoy those sort of gnarly trails and keep up with my friends, granted it may have made me a better rider in the long run but thats not much use when my friends are riding where they are now. Im pretty chuffed I have hit some pretty decent drops, that I almost certainly wouldnt have If i had had a hardtail.. why? not because the bikes cant handle it, but because I wouldnt have been visiting some of the places I have been If I only had a small hardtail. True skill or not, I believe the ability of riding Ive developed is slightly due to riding similar bikes to what others are riding and learnign from them. But very few of them are on full DH rigs, just 5-7 inch full sussers/