Originally Posted by
JohnDThompson
In general, the benefit of "stiffness" in a bicycle increases with rider weight and decreases with road/trail roughness. A heavy rider on smooth pavement gets the most benefit from a stiff bicycle; a light rider on rough pavement, the least.
Experienced plenty of, um, noise / vibration / harshness when we were growing up, riding in the fields. More vibration when barreling down the bluffs to the jump we'd made at the bottom ... but more harshness when landing over the tracks and in the cactus patch on the other side. (Heavy or light didn't seem to matter, picking ourselves up from the cactus patch. But, boy! were we stiff ...
)