Re:
I think the thread is a good one. The ZEN of mountain-biking very much includes the sound of bikes and the sound of bike on soil.
But I don't think it's ancient versus modern. Carbon bikes have a hollow clonking. My new 853 bikes have pingy tubes like any ancient Clockwork or Explosif. Some of my modern bikes are stealth silent. But others have ultra-annoying internal cable rattle. We sometimes stop and play a wailing disc symphony by moving our bikes slowly forward - like elephants greeting each other. Childish but fun. In the past I hated the grinding of grit on rims during the winter, it was the sound of destruction.
But overall, the new balloon tyres - 2.4 etc - tend to quieten things down, as well as the lower pressures. Some of my older bikes used to sound like a bag of spanners - clonking forks, three cables pinging the top tube, chain slap, wheel resonance due to high pressure 1.9 tyres, and water bottle vibrating in the cage. And 1 inch headsets which would let go after one ride no matter what you did, adding that visceral clonk from the front end. It all was certainly distinctive, that's for sure.
But the ZEN sound I remember from the past was a run from hidden valley parallel to the Ditchling Road up the rocky path and then down to join the South Downs Way. Maybe 1996. Marin steel with Manitou 1s. It was an ultra fast downhill section, during the harvest, and the sound of the tyres silent on chalk, then the whoosh of earth, then rustling across flattened straw, and repeat and repeat, was good for the soul.
