Yup, the advertisers on MTBR have gotten me. They released a few ticks and they bit me. For some odd reason, I am now convinced that I need a $500 fork and a $300 rear shock for my $450 Giant Warp. I am also convinced that I need a $100 carbon fiber handle bar and $200 Sidi shoes. Oh I almost forgot to mention that I MUST have the $100 helmet to match my $75 jersey $90 shorts.

GIVE ME A BREAK! Since when does a guy need to drop so much money to enjoy mountain biking? I mean all that stuff can easily add up to a mortgage payment, and that doesn’t even include the cost of your bike!

Oh man, it’s so frustrating because bike companies know exactly how to convince us that we need the latest and greatest thingabobber that has all the bells and whistles.

Just the other day, I was on my favorite trail, The Fullerton Loop. Some guy on $1200 Jamis broke down because his front derailleur started rubbing. So he had this bright idea to start messing with it the screws. After I fixed his SRAM derailleur we started riding together. I noticed that he had a sweet Fox Vanilla front fork and a matching rear shock. That thing was absorbing all the bumps. It took on anything that the trail dished out.

As this guy was floating on the trail, here I am bouncing with my bike equipped with the (insert sarcasm: HERE) highest quality RST T4 Magnesium fork and my Giant HV Coil Over rear shock. That’s right; I was bouncing like a marble going down a bumpy street. But this guy next to me was just sitting pretty and not even feeling the trail.

Then it got to me…”I need a better fork….I also need a better shock.” So the very next day I logged on to MTBR to check out the “Hot Deals” section. I was inundated with all sorts of great deals! Forks that were normally $800 were on sale for a low low price of $500! Then the rear shocks were on sale too! Heck I even saw a whole new cycling wardrobe that I could have bought for under $150.

I think you get the point, marketing, whether it is through MTBR or some other mountain bike site, can easily convince you that the two year old fork you currently have is not good enough, and that you need the best of the best.

So what’s my point? You’re asking, “what crawled up his butt?” I’m just fed up that all these new products are saturating our minds and brain washing them into believing that in order for us to “truly enjoy” riding is to have their goods.

Going back to the guy that had that nice Fox Vanilla fork, his fork was so nice that he couldn’t feel the bumps. Now…don’t you think that part of the reason why mountain biking was invented was to…oh I don’t know….feel the BUMPS! Seriously! If you don’t want to feel the terrain underneath you, get on a road bike! Or better yet, get in a Cadillac and drive down some freshly paved asphalt road.

In my opinion…we, and I mean the whole mountain bike community doesn’t need all of those things to enjoy bike riding. When we were kids, we rode on some cheap department store brand bikes and we fell in love with it…rigid frame and everything. Ask yourself the question before dropping a few bills on that new fork or new gadget…”Do I really need that?” Chances are you won’t. Go out there and ride!