What kind of mountain biker are you? #3 The beardy weirdy

If you've ridden a mountain bike for any length of time you'll recognise the various sorts of riders you're likely to meet on the trails. In this mini series we take a look at six very different sorts of mountain biker, this time it's the turn of the beardy-weirdy, you know who you are…

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Published: August 27, 2017 at 7:35 am

One of the beauties of biking is its individuality, the ability to make of it what you want. Although the industry is keen to pigeonhole products and riding styles into categories, there are plenty of riders who refuse to be labelled. The funny thing is that, like hipsters, by trying to look different they end up falling into a category of their own which, again like hipsters, is often signified by an abundance facial hair.

Appearance

Beards are a must-have, surprisingly. There’s no excuse for not growing one, since the niche bike rider will be male and at least 30. Length is good, but bushiness is also requisite. A fluffy set of mutton chops or a goatee is a surefire way to ensure he doesn’t get bothered by girls when he’s out on the trails or down the pub. Tattoos are a recommended addition – a cog on the back of the calf is a good starting point, but skulls, flames and other bike parts are also approved. He will express his love of prog rock with a Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd Primal Wear jersey.

close up of big bushy beard
Kind of goes without saying that a hearty beard is an essential for this type of rider (Photo: Getty images)
mountain biker tattoo
Wooah there, very dodgy tattoo alert! (Photo: Getty images)

Wheels of steel

The beardy-weirdy will pick an outlandishly large wheel and tyre size and adamantly justify to anyone who will listen, and even those who won’t, that his choice is the future. “It’s way faster and more fun than everything else.” The fact that no pro has ever won a race on a plus bike or fatbike? Na, that doesn’t matter – in the eyes of the niche rider their beloved 36in wheeled, fat tyred beast is still the best. Suspension? No thank you. Who needs it anyway if you’re bouncing along on tyres as wide a tractor’s? If you must have suspension, it needs to involve dual fork legs, elastomers and lots of pivots.

close up shot of fat tyres
Tyres have to be big and fat and wide.
fat bike tyre in rigid front fork

Cogs and cow bars

For the specialist bike rider, singlespeeds are best. It’s totally impractical to run only one gear on a mountain bike so that makes him, in his warped world, more unique and means he can bond with other ‘special’ riders over their shared masochism. And forget standard shaped bars – this crowd go with something completely different. Cow bars, klunker bars, Jones bars, drops on a mountain bike – think of a shape you can bend aluminium into and some bewhiskered man is probably running it on the front of their bike.

loads fo kit strapped to handlebars of a fatbike
There's no limit to the amount of kit the beardy adventure type will strap to their bars

Out there’ riding

The leftfield rider wouldn’t be seen dead at a trail centre or downhill track. They much prefer to ride unpleasantly long distances cross-country, ideally with unridable bog sections and most likely in unsuitable weather conditions. The top dog of the species (in his eyes), the singlespeed rider, will put in hundreds of miles to achieve that skinny, malnourished look. The fatbiker needn’t worry too much about his real ale belly hindering his performance because his slow-rolling bike will stop him venturing too far afield, and he certainly won’t be railing any berms or hucking any drops. The 20kg of luggage, camping equipment and coffee-making apparatus he carries strapped to every tube of his frame will make sure of that.

bike packing in wild landscape
You're lucky to spot this type of rider - they're like to be miles away from anywhere in as remote a spot as they can find
Loads fo travel kit strapped to bike packers bike
You can tell a beardy weirdy's bike as there's usually more kit than bike
Man fatbiking round boggy section in the woods
Fat bikers like to locate the boggiest sections they can find for riding, in the name of adventure. (Photo: Getty images).

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