CassidyAce
Senior Retro Guru
As per title, really: if you track your rides, do you have one retro MTB that you're usually faster on than the others? If so, can you identify what's making you faster on that bike?
For my part, I've been riding five different bikes recently, all 1990s bikes, and which bike I'm riding seems to make no major difference to my average speed. None of my rides are pure speed tests and there's often a bit of slowing down due to dog walkers, slower riders, high winds, etc. but these things should average out. Take the Hardrock, Rockhopper and Stumpy, just because they form a neat hierarchy, and you might think that it would be slowest through to fastest but there's no major difference - perhaps just a slight one, on a good day, due to higher gearing on the Rockhopper. (There are differences in ride quality, though.) One of the bikes is a 700c flat bar sort-of gravel bike but, no, that is not faster. It might be that I'm not pushing to the limits of either the bikes or myself so the differences between the bikes matter less; but I am pushing to be quick most of the time so I would expect some difference. As it is, the main thing affecting my speed seems to be simply how I feel on the day. :|
For my part, I've been riding five different bikes recently, all 1990s bikes, and which bike I'm riding seems to make no major difference to my average speed. None of my rides are pure speed tests and there's often a bit of slowing down due to dog walkers, slower riders, high winds, etc. but these things should average out. Take the Hardrock, Rockhopper and Stumpy, just because they form a neat hierarchy, and you might think that it would be slowest through to fastest but there's no major difference - perhaps just a slight one, on a good day, due to higher gearing on the Rockhopper. (There are differences in ride quality, though.) One of the bikes is a 700c flat bar sort-of gravel bike but, no, that is not faster. It might be that I'm not pushing to the limits of either the bikes or myself so the differences between the bikes matter less; but I am pushing to be quick most of the time so I would expect some difference. As it is, the main thing affecting my speed seems to be simply how I feel on the day. :|