Getting hate for being on the trainer

Training
120

  • I don’t think any of us are advocating for no outside riding, so that’s a strawman IMO.

  • I specifically mentioned building and maintaining handling skills and such in one or more threads related to discussion like this. It is more important for those new to the sports without many years of experience under their belts.

For me, I have been riding and racing a looong time. I specifically took two days of riding to focus on outside skills on my MTB to be ready for the race. Those two short 1 hour sessions were all I need to “find my skills” again.

In the race, I was able to ride away from people with better fitness and full suspension race bikes on all of the technical and descending sections despite being on a hardtail. I got a few people mentioning it specifically after the race, that they saw me on that HT bike and assumed I’d be easy to pass on the downs. They quickly saw that was NOT going to happen.

I only share that to show that everything is relative and subjective. I know others who have ridden exclusively outside on their MTBs and I still rode away from them as mentioned. People can come at this a number of ways that work, are safe and effective. Practice outside as much as you need, but don’t assume we are all starting from the same level, because that is definitely NOT the case.

ETA: Some of the posts where I covered this in various ways over the years.

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