The Search For Enlightenment

Today has been fantastic, the sun shone, the sky was blue and although it wasn’t exactly tropical, the conditions for going over to Swanage for the Wiggle MTB event were pretty much perfect. The ground had dried up considerably from the mud-fest of last week, so I even managed to do my favourite circuit whilst staying a bit cleaner.

Getting to the event, held at the Herston camp site in Washpond Lane, Swanage it was great to see that most of the attendees had also turned up on their bikes. I met a few of them on the trip over from Old Harry and from the look of their trick bikes, they were also keen off-roaders.

Some of the best known bike manufacturers had turned up with their 2014 range. Aluminium and carbon frames, traditional 26” and the emerging 29” wheels and amazing suspension set-ups were in evidence, all very enticing. Of course, they were there to encourage sales, but at £2000 to £3500 for the top of the range, I wasn’t buying.

I got my bike in an end of year sale, half price and around a tenth of the cost of these all singing, all dancing models. It’s not made by one of the top manufacturers, it’s certainly not the lightest of bikes and it won’t get the admiring glances of the top models, but it performs well, or at least well enough for my level of riding.

The thing is, as with any bicycle, no matter how much it costs, how awesome it may appear, you still have to pedal it. The lighter it is, the easier that might be, but having lost over 20kgs of bodyweight, I think the odd gram here and there would make little extra difference to any of my rides, even my own personal bests.

So even though it was tempting to accept the generous offers of test rides, I politely declined. I didn’t see the point in risking making myself dissatisfied with my own bike. I was very pleased with the free gifts that the lady from Wiggle gave me. A nice new water bottle and a pair of handlebar grips, that perfectly match the colour of my frame.

Thank you Wiggle, I enjoyed the event, it was nice to see the collection of beautiful bikes, and the gifts will come in very handy. Sorry I didn’t buy anything, but common sense prevailed.