Originally Posted by
chas58
That is one option, given your assumptions.
In reality, I'm a pretty aggressive rider - riding a road or CX bike like it was a mountain bike. Sometimes I hit hard bumps that are more than 1" deep. at 20+mph in traffic, I'm gonna hit some potholes (rather that than a car). As for using arms and legs - well it those occasions often involve catching air, so I'm not exactly a "sack of potatoes". LOL! I don't baby my bike.
Just because you catch air doesn't mean that you aren't a sack of potatoes in the saddle. I've seen lots of people who can get airborne and come down like a ton of bricks. I'm a big guy who rides very aggressively. That doesn't mean that I bottom out rims with any regularity nor that I land jumps with a thud, however. It's all in the way that you use your arms and legs to absorb the impact.
I
do baby my bike but not by avoiding impacts. I do it by assuring that the impact is as minimal as possible
on the bike. Even on a full suspension bike, I take more impact with my legs and arms than the suspension system does. That's because
my suspension system (i.e. my arms and legs) have more travel than the bike's suspension system does. If the only "suspension system" the bike has is a relatively small volume of air in the tires, it's even more important to use your arms and legs rather than trying to deflate the tire enough to give you some "comfort".
Originally Posted by
chas58
But yeah, pinch flats don't exist when you roll tubeless.
Pinch flats may not exist for tubeless but rim damage and tire damage certainly do. A pinch flat is an inconvenience. A bent or broken rim is a much more costly disaster. One costs you a few minutes and a $0.30 patch. The other may cost hundreds of dollars depending on your wheels. The reason that you "cringe" when you feel the wheel bottom out is that you know this without really thinking about it.