Last month (November) I finally sold my first and only road bicycle (I love MTBing much more), and bought a Fisher Rig. Not a full rigid ride, but having only 80mm front travel doesn't really factor like the 130mm front of my dual suspension.

Anyway, I knew I was in for painful rides, but I'd been feeling like I was getting slow and lazy in selecting lines on the downhill, and gear ratios on the uphill with my DS. I wanted a challenge. I want to really train, and I wanted to experience a 29er. Also, at the same time, I had to get rid of my vehicle that had a tow hitch, so on my replacement vehicle I could only use my roof rack, and hauling my heavy full-suspension onto the roof of an SUV was not something that excited me, so I was “forced” to ride my Fisher Rig for three weeks as it's only 25lbs, and much easier to lift.

What a difference! The first ride out just about killed me on the uphill, though the reduced weight definitely helped a lot. The downhill shook the cuss out of me, but I was forced to pick better lines, and was invigorated by being able to flick the tail around, and bomb through obstacles with the aggressive 29er tires. Also interestingly, the 29er (running tubeless, at about 30psi) seemed to ride a lot more like a full-suspension than anticipated, soaking up a lot of the trail, despite being a hard tail.

Well, after three training rides on the Rig, I decided to try my DS again, as I had a mud run to contest two days later, and didn't want to exhaust myself. WOW! What a difference in my riding. I had energy like never before while riding the DS, found myself riding uphill in the geared equivalents of my single speed (32f and 18r, I think), and finished a 15 mile ride with double my normal uphill with ZERO post-ride exhaustion.

So now, my plan is to run every third ride on the dual suspension, and train most rides on Rig.