There are now dozens of companies around the world making mountain bikes, and my company Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays is just one of hundreds of mountain bike tour companies around the world offering adventures to people willing to pay a few bucks to explore the world on their bikes. There are mountain bike trails and clubs in almost every country in the world. Pretty amazing how the sport has grown.
Finding out that the sport is turning 30 caused me to reflect on my first experiences with mountain biking. I didn't get into the sport until I was about 20, way back in 1991. My first bike frame was an aluminum Balance (I don't even think they're in business any more) and I ordered it from one of those mail order places in California, then painstakingly and lovingly built up the frame part by part. It took me about 2 months to finally get the thing together, since I was learning on the fly. it had 1" of front travel on one of the original Manitou forks and top of the line cantilever brakes that were useless in the rain.But once it was complete, I couldn't tear myself away from it. I was in downtown Toronto, not exactly the hotbed of mountain biking, but I took every chance I could to ride it: around town, on the local trails, to class, you name it. I was in love. Here was a bike that could take me anywhere. To say it changed my life is a bit of an understatement. These days, I mountain bike for a living, traveling all over the world in search of the best places to ride. I no longer ride a Balance (our new sponsor is DeVinci and I can't wait to get my new rig), but the thrill is still the same.
So what's your first mountain bike story? I'd love to hear your experiences with your first mountain bike and how you got into the sport. Leave your comments below!
Mike
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2 comments:
wow amazing, it's still very young then. 1978 was when i was born ! :)
My first actual mountain bike was when i could afford one which was in 2001, i had some cheap rigids before that. It was a Giant Yukon HT which served it's purpose for a while on many fire trails in our area. It wasn't until I was invited to go down a offshoot singletrack by a group of guys in their 30's all with super duper santa cruz and specialized bikes, looked like freeride or all mountain bikes ? This area is known to be quite dangerous and rough, the first 10 minutes down i was fearing for my life it was fast and extremely rough and I the handlebars were going all over the place. I managed to get through this ok and walking the huge dropoffs, until we got to a bit of rough singletrack and a log completely destroyed one of the plasticy pedals which i replaced with clipped shoes. I had to cycle the rest of the way on the metal pole of the pedal, and we had to carry the bikes up the valley after crossing a creek.
That day convinced me to go out and get a more serious dual suspension bike which was a Kona Dawg :D I'm due for an upgrade soon ;)
After putting the platform SPD pedals on the bike it took me about a week to get used to clipped shoes, that was in 2004. It was quite hilarious, I was living in the city at the same and I 'spud' stacked it onto the pavement alot, one time was coming home with a backpack full of shopping and a traveller was confused where they were going, i went to the left of them to get around them, and as they turned left to cross the street, they pushed me onto the road, and out comes the palms onto the road, that hurt !
I can't remember if it was after the St Helenas singletrack event or before, but I also took the Giant on a race around pine forests south from us. I was in a not so serious category, but pine forest singletracks are extremely bumpy and dusty and it hurt quite a bit being on a hardtail :) I remember it well, where we got into a really narrow singletrack, and there was the pro riders lapping us, and i freaked while being clipped in trying to get out of the way and caught the chainring on my calf ouch.
Anyway mountain biking is fun !
In 2004 I also had the pleasure of checking out the 'dundas valley' in toronto. That was an insane circuit to go on, I hired a hardtail and took the train up. A funny thing though, I'm not really into man made track circuits and jumps etc, I went up this mount to check out what it was, and it was a jump with a 50cm - 1m gap in the middle and fell right into it LOL. Anyway it was a cool ride to go on and very close to the city.
Soon I would like to cycle tour europe, but possibly first go up and down our coast after soughting out a touring bike, thats easy to transport.
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