To confuse this matter every company that has a product swears their product revolutionizes the sport of mountain biking.Physics, which controls almost every aspect of riding a mountain bike, has several laws that must be obeyed.However these rules, which must be obeyed, can also be manipulated.The key to manipulating these rules is to understand how they work and how they affect your riding experience.
The most basic law involved in riding a bike nashbar is the law of friction.Friction is the force we must fight in order to achieve even the slowest of movements.When riding a bike you are essentially operating against two forms of friction.There are many things you can do to reduce the friction you create in the air, however, the only way to increase or reduce friction between your tires and the ground is to find ways to increase or decrease the surface area of the tire that contacts the ground.To explain this simply, less tire on the ground means less traction and friction, while more tire on the ground means more traction and more friction.This should be almost as full as it can go without bursting.
It should feel like you are having a bit of a difficult time controlling the bike, but pedaling is easy.This is because friction has been reduced, but so has traction and thus control.While the change may not be drastic, you should notice an increase in handling as well as an increase in effort.This is because you have created a bit more area for the tire to grab and thus increased both friction and traction.Finally spend some time adjusting your psi until you feel the amount of effort and the amount of control are as well balanced for your riding style as they can be.While this may seem a small change, you will notice the difference pretty quickly.Stay tuned for the next article in the series which looks at using air pressure for specific trail conditions.I run, typically, around 27-30 lbs worth of pressure in my tires.Any more and it feels like I am bouncing off of everything without any grip..
