Kenny Inglis has been riding bikes almost his whole life - BMX as a kid, road in his twenties, MTB in his thirties, gravel ever since. He was never a nervous rider. Spills happen; you get back on.
Then in 2023, Kenny suffered a serious traumatic brain injury.
It took him six months to regain his balance and coordination on a bike. But the hardest battle was with his confidence. Gravel riding demands constant attention to fast-changing, unpredictable terrain, and Kenny found himself avoiding the routes he used to love.
"Gravel made me nervous to the extent that I was riding less, or riding on less dynamic routes, to avoid the potential for a fall."
Kenny started looking into suspension stems - most of which, in his words, looked like "heavy chunks of metal." Then he found the USE Vybe suspension stem: not bulky, nor obvious it was anything other than a standard stem.
"It was clear in the first couple of kilometers that the Vybe was soaking up the roughness and smoothing out the front end...The shift from cautious riding, to more confident riding with intent, was more or less immediate."
That confidence carried him back to competitive racing, and to where we met him - a 100km gravel event with a night stage. He placed 7th in his age group.
"I really cannot recommend the USE Vybe highly enough. For me personally, it has absolutely made the difference between riding gravel the way I want to ride gravel, and riding gravel the way I have to."
You don't need to be racing for a podium to feel that difference. The Vybe suspension stem is built for every rider who wants to trust their bike on rough ground.