Mountain biking

• 1. Introduction

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  In August 1896, a company of Buffalo Soldiers rode bicycles off the paved world, pedaling rough country from Missoula, Montana, all the way to Yellowstone. That expedition is one of the first known examples of a bicycle modified specifically for use off-road. Mountain biking, the sport of riding bicycles over rough terrain, would not have a name or a shape for decades after. So who first bolted fat tires to an old frame and pointed it down a mountain? Why did the established bicycle industry dismiss the whole idea as a passing fad? And how did a machine built to survive dirt, rocks, and crashes split into so many different forms, from cross-country racing to riders launching backflips off mounds of soil? The answers run from a fire road in California to a forest trail in Germany.

• 2. Tinkerers And Klunkers

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  Riders around Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County, California, and in Crested Butte, Colorado, adapted bikes to the punishment of off-road riding. In the late 1960s through the late 1970s, they freewheeled down mountain trails on modified heavy cruisers, old 1930s and 1940s Schwinn bicycles fitted with better brakes and fat tires. These early machines were primitive, running single-speed coaster brakes. The frame of choice was the Schwinn Excelsior, prized for its geometry, though frames from Colson and others also served.

  Russ Mahon of Cupertino, California, is the first person known to fit multiple speeds and drum brakes to one of these bikes, and he raced the result in cyclo-cross. Riders added multi-speed gearing, drum or rim brakes, and motocross or BMX-style handlebars, turning cruisers into machines they called "klunkers." Because the term "mountain biking" did not yet exist, "klunk" even worked as a verb.

  Early downhill racing on mountain fire roads burned the grease inside lesser-branded coaster brakes. After each run, riders had to "repack" the bearings, which gave a name to the first organized downhill series in Fairfax, California: the Repack Races. Those races drove early technical innovation and brought the sport to a national audience through the TV program Evening Magazine. The fire road unofficially called Repack still exists and is rideable today.

• 3. Naming The Machine

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  In Oregon in 1966, a Chemeketan club member named D. Gwynn built a rough terrain bicycle and called it a "mountain bicycle" for the place he meant to ride it. That may be the first use of the name. The idea was taking root in more than one country at once.

  In England in 1968, Geoff Apps, a motorbike trials rider, began experimenting with off-road bicycle designs. By 1979 he had a custom lightweight bike suited to the wet, muddy conditions of south-east England. The bikes were built around 2 inch by 650b Nokian snow tires, with a 700x47c version also produced. They sold under the Cleland Cycles brand until late 1984, and bikes based on the Cleland design were sold by English Cycles and Highpath Engineering into the early 1990s.

  Earlier still, road racing cyclists had ridden off-road through cyclo-cross, using it to stay fit through winter. Cyclo-cross became a sport in its own right in the 1940s, with the first world championship in 1950. In the United Kingdom, off-road cyclists founded the Rough Stuff Fellowship in 1955. The sport that would carry a California fire road's name was being assembled in pieces, on two continents, by people who often did not know one another.

• 4. Building The First Real Bikes

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  Joe Breeze is normally credited with introducing the first purpose-built mountain bike in 1978. Until the late 1970s and early 1980s, road bicycle companies had not begun manufacturing mountain bikes from high-tech lightweight materials. The first such bikes were essentially road frames with heavier tubing, different geometry, and a wider frame and fork to clear a wider tire. They used a straight, transverse-mounted handlebar rather than the dropped, curved bars of road racing, and some parts came straight from BMX.

  Tom Ritchey, a welder skilled in frame building, built the first regularly available mountain bike frame. Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly accessorized it and sold it through their company, MountainBikes. The three partners eventually dissolved the partnership; the company became Fisher Mountain Bikes, later bought by Trek and still sold as the Gary Fisher Collection, while Ritchey opened his own frame shop. Other contributors included Otis Guy and Keith Bontrager.

  The first two mass-produced mountain bikes arrived in the early 1980s: the Specialized Stumpjumper and the Univega Alpina Pro. Specialized, an American startup, arranged frame production in Japan and Taiwan. First marketed in 1981, its bike largely followed Ritchey's geometry but used TIG welding instead of fillet-brazing, a process better suited to mass production that cut labor and cost. The bikes ran 15 gears with derailleurs, a triple chainring, and a five-sprocket cogset.

• 5. From Fad To Mainstream

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  Large manufacturers such as Schwinn and Fuji dismissed the all-terrain bicycle as a short-term fad and missed the coming boom in adventure sports. The first mass-produced mountain bikes instead came from new companies: MountainBikes, Ritchey, and Specialized. Documentation followed the riding. In 1988, The Great Mountain Biking Video was released, and in 2007, Klunkerz: A Film About Mountain Bikes documented the sport's formative years in Northern California.

  In Laguna Beach, California, a club called the Laguna Rads formed in the mid-1980s and began a weekly ride across uncharted coastal hillsides where no cycling trails existed. Industry insiders suggest this was the birth of the freeride movement. The Laguna Rads have held the longest-running downhill race once a year since 1986.

  Through the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, mountain biking moved from a little-known pursuit to a mainstream activity. Gear that had been sold only at specialty shops or by mail order appeared in standard bike stores, and eventually some department stores stocked inexpensive full-suspension bikes with disc brakes. New trends arrived: the all-mountain bike with 4 to 6 inches of fork travel, the 29er built on 700c rims for tires two inches wide or more, and the single-speed as a return to simplicity. The first mass-produced one-by drivetrain was Sram's XX1 in 2012. In 2020, COVID-19 drove a surge in popularity, with some US vendors reporting they had sold out of bikes under US$1000.

• 6. Many Ways To Ride

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  Cross-country, abbreviated XC, means riding point-to-point or in a loop over climbs and descents on varied terrain. A typical XC bike weighs around 9 to 13 kilos, 20 to 30 pounds, with 0 to 125 mm of suspension travel, and it is the only mountain biking discipline in the Summer Olympic Games. From there the categories climb in travel and intent: trail bikes carry 120 to 130 mm of front suspension, all-mountain bikes 140 to 150 mm, and enduro bikes 160 to 180 mm on a full suspension frame suited to both climbing and descending.

  Enduro racing borrows from downhill but stretches far longer, sometimes a full day, linking timed downhill stages with climbing sections that carry a maximum time limit. It draws high-level riders such as Sam Hill and Isabeau Courdurier, and its modern format is run by the Enduro World Series. Downhill, abbreviated DH, sends riders down rough, steep tracks full of large jumps and drops, with up-lifts or ski lifts carrying riders and bikes to the top. Downhill bikes weigh around 16 to 20 kg, the most expensive professional builds as little as 15 kg, with 170 to 250 mm of travel and a 200 mm dual-crown fork.

  Four-cross and Dual Slalom, abbreviated 4X, put riders on separate or short slalom tracks with dirt jumps, berms, and gaps, mostly on light hardtails. Cedric Gracia once competed in both 4X and DH, though that crossover is growing rarer. Freeride is a do-anything discipline, from unclocked downhill to North Shore riding on elevated bridges and logs, with bikes of 13 to 18 kilos and 150 to 250 mm of suspension. Its slopestyle branch mixes big-air freeride with BMX tricks on built courses, where riders earn judges' points by choosing lines that show off their skills. Dirt jumping sends riders airborne off shaped mounds of soil on small, maneuverable hardtails built from sturdy materials like steel. Trials riding hops and jumps bikes over obstacles without a foot touching the ground, on bikes that look almost nothing like mountain bikes, using 20, 24, or 26 inch wheels and very small frames, some without a saddle.

• 7. Gear And The Physics Of Risk

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  A bicycle helmet should be replaced every five years, or sooner if it appears damaged, because ultraviolet radiation from sunlight degrades plastic components. The level of protection riders wear varies greatly with speed, trail conditions, weather, and personal choice. A helmet and gloves are usually regarded as sufficient for non-technical riding, while downhill draws full-face helmets, goggles, and armored suits. Helmets fall into three main types: cross-country, the rounded skateboarder style nicknamed half shells, and full-face with a jaw guard. New integrated neck protectors such as the Leatt-Brace fit securely with full-face helmets.

  Protective gear cannot grant immunity. Concussions still occur despite helmets, and spinal injuries still occur despite padding and neck braces. High-tech gear can even produce a revenge effect, where some cyclists feel safe taking dangerous risks. The deeper danger is governed by physics. Because the key determinant of injury risk is kinetic energy, and kinetic energy increases with the square of speed, each doubling of speed can quadruple injury risk. Tripling the speed brings a nine-fold increase, and quadrupling it a sixteen-fold increase. Higher speed also shrinks the distance available to react, multiplying the chance of a crash again.

  Self-reliance runs through the whole sport because riders are often far from civilization. They learn to repair broken bikes and flat tires to avoid being stranded, and many carry a backpack with water, food, trailside tools, and a first aid kit. Hydration ranges from simple water bottles to bladder packs worn close to the spine, such as CamelBaks, which some riders value for perceived protection. Because mountain biking demands so much from every part of the bike, riders check and maintain their machines before and after every ride, where a casual rider might wait months.

• 8. Trails, Access, And Impact

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  An estimated 13.5 million mountain bicyclists visit public lands each year, a figure the Bureau of Land Management used to describe an activity that was once low-use and easy to manage and has since grown more complex. From the beginning, riders have faced land access issues, with some early riding areas hit by extreme restrictions or outright bans. That pressure built local, regional, and international advocacy groups that create and maintain trails through education, trail workdays, and trail patrols.

  In 1988, five California mountain bike clubs joined to form the International Mountain Bicycling Association, or IMBA, originally to fight widespread trail closures. The founding clubs were the Concerned Off-Road Bicyclists Association, Bicycle Trails Council East Bay, Bicycle Trails Council Marin, Sacramento Rough Riders, and Responsible Organized Mountain. IMBA now serves as an umbrella organization representing more than 700 affiliated groups worldwide, and promotes its Rules of the Trail.

  The environmental footprint of the sport is, by IMBA's own review, poorly understood, though the review grants that mountain biking contributes some degree of environmental degradation through soil and vegetation damage. Several studies report that a mountain bike's impact on a length of trail is comparable to a hiker's and substantially less than that of an equestrian or motorized vehicle. A more surprising effect emerged on forest trails in Freiburg, Germany, where Fabio Weiss, Tyler J. Brummer, and Gesine Pufal studied bikes as a form of seed dispersal. Most seeds fell from tires within the first 5 to 20 meters, but small portions remained after 200 to 500 meters, and seeds carried on parts of the bike that rarely touch the ground traveled even farther. With participants cleaning their bikes on average only every 70 km or every two rides, the researchers warned that riding two different areas can connect once-separate habitats and open the door to unwanted plant invasions.