Mountain Biking - Dear Mr. and Mrs. MountainBiker,

I owe you an apology. For years, I pictured mountain bikers as failed road cyclists or retired BMXers that couldn't make the leap to road cycling. There's a 12 mile trail around Fullerton, CA. that all the local mountain bikers ride; my low-end ride on even my fixed-gear road bike is a 26 mile jaunt from Anaheim to Huntington Beach and back. Today I had the opportunity to ride said trail with some friends from a local bike shop; three cyclocross riders, and two mountain bikers (including me).

Before I go on, my ego demands that I attempt to level the playing field by letting you know that my mountain bike is sub-standard as compared to today's hardware. It is a hardtail Trek MountainTrail 820 with a fixed fork; slow, heavy, and old. It rolls with regular pedals and mini-clips to prevent me from sliding off the front of the pedal, but there is no way for me to spin because the mini-clips are not strong enough to allow pulling up on the pedals.

So we take off for the trail tonight and I'm thinking, "How hard can this be? I remember my BMX days, and this is just like a glorified BMX bike on a glorified BMX track. A few sprints, some jumps, lotsa downhills... easy!"

I could not have been more mistaken. The 12 miles I put in on the Fullerton Loop were the hardest 12 miles I've ever put in on a bicycle. The downhills were INCREDIBLE. There were a few jumps, even, which were way cool. But the hills and the singletrack riding KILLED me. I had to get off the bike and walk up most of the hills; as my pedal configuration didn't allow for spinning, I had to get out of the saddle and mash up the hills. Which moved all my weight to the front of the bike, causing the back wheel to spin out in the dirt. The lack of suspension rattled my body to the bone -- I felt like a martini shaken, not stirred.

Believe you me, I'm not trying to write my experience off as faulty or ill-fitting equipment. While I'm sure that was a contributing factor, I learned tonight that mountain biking is nowhere near as easy as I thought it was; in fact, I now think us road cyclists have it easy by way of comparison. Give me Colima or Turnbull Canyon or, hell, even Alpe D'Huez ANY DAY.

So, Mr. and Mrs. MountainBiker, you have my apologies. And respect. Keep on ridin'.

Tim.

apology accepted. don't let it happen again. :mad:

:D

I owe you an apology. For years, I pictured mountain bikers as failed road cyclists or retired BMXers that couldn't make the leap to road cycling. There's a 12 mile trail around Fullerton, CA. that all the local mountain bikers ride; my low-end ride on even my fixed-gear road bike is a 26 mile jaunt from Anaheim to Huntington Beach and back. Today I had the opportunity to ride said trail with some friends from a local bike shop; three cyclocross riders, and two mountain bikers (including me).

Before I go on, my ego demands that I attempt to level the playing field by letting you know that my mountain bike is sub-standard as compared to today's hardware. It is a hardtail Trek MountainTrail 820 with a fixed fork; slow, heavy, and old. It rolls with regular pedals and mini-clips to prevent me from sliding off the front of the pedal, but there is no way for me to spin because the mini-clips are not strong enough to allow pulling up on the pedals.

So we take off for the trail tonight and I'm thinking, "How hard can this be? I remember my BMX days, and this is just like a glorified BMX bike on a glorified BMX track. A few sprints, some jumps, lotsa downhills... easy!"

I could not have been more mistaken. The 12 miles I put in on the Fullerton Loop were the hardest 12 miles I've ever put in on a bicycle. The downhills were INCREDIBLE. There were a few jumps, even, which were way cool. But the hills and the singletrack riding KILLED me. I had to get off the bike and walk up most of the hills; as my pedal configuration didn't allow for spinning, I had to get out of the saddle and mash up the hills. Which moved all my weight to the front of the bike, causing the back wheel to spin out in the dirt. The lack of suspension rattled my body to the bone -- I felt like a martini shaken, not stirred.

Believe you me, I'm not trying to write my experience off as faulty or ill-fitting equipment. While I'm sure that was a contributing factor, I learned tonight that mountain biking is nowhere near as easy as I thought it was; in fact, I now think us road cyclists have it easy by way of comparison. Give me Colima or Turnbull Canyon or, hell, even Alpe D'Huez ANY DAY.

So, Mr. and Mrs. MountainBiker, you have my apologies. And respect. Keep on ridin'.

Tim.
Funny, I pictured roadies as middle aged white guys who are too old and whose joints are too achy to handle mtbing.

I appreciate your change of heart though. :o

apology accepted. don't let it happen again. :mad:

:D

Oh, no, no, no. I came home thinking, "Gads, I'm glad I'm normally busy on Thursday nights." Much respect.

(Thursday nights being, of course, the day my cycling friends ride the trail.)

You guys and gals rock to be able to pull that ****e off on a regular basis.

Funny, I pictured roadies as middle aged white guys who are too old and whose joints are too achy to handle mtbing.

:D

In my case, you hit one out of three. I'll let you pick which one. :)

You discredit yourself too much. You'd probably be surprised how much better you'd do on a more capable bike. I started out on a Trek 800, it was pretty rough :) Of course that was a few years ago when my only prior riding experience was... well, none really.

But hey, you made it out alive. Good job!

I hope you're not implying that you've given up on MTBing. As with anything, do enough of it and you will improve. You'll find that you can carry over quite a bit of road cycling skills to MTBing and vice versa. I split time evenly between the two and find they compliment one another very well and one type of riding helps improve the other.

Well, you may be surprised at the weight of mountain bikes. My riding buddy's Trek 820 is as light or lighter than my hardtail and definately lighter than my dually. You're just used to those feathery road bikes.:D

Alot of it boils down to technique and "time in the saddle". When you say you couldn't do any "spinning" up hills, many hardtail/rigid bike riders do like to stand up and mash on the climbs b/c there is soooo much power to be had there. You can stand on the climbs and still be over the rear tire enough to get traction. (depending on your rear tire setup) The "spinning" seems to be more for the people who own the longer travel or "more active" dual suspension bikes that begin to Zap your energy when you stand up and hammer.

I have ridden the trails with 4 roadies now and I must say that they were in better shape than me. In turn, I had to wait for them at the top of every climb and bottom of every descent. I live for the crazy down hills and technical stuff, and I appreciate a good techy climb. They tried their hardest to steer clear of it.

If I were to ride the road with them, they'd wipe the face of the earth with my frowning face.

I'm glad you took the time to experience our passion...I hope one day I can borrow a road bike and experience your passion. One thing you may think about...try to find a Specialized bicycle dealer in your area. They have been selling alot of "test bikes" to shops. The shop lets you take the test bike out for a day or two and ride the trails with it. After a few months, they sell the bike @ a discount.

This way you can experience a "high end" ride and see if you like it. There's something to be said for nice equipment. The nicer the bike I ride, the more I usually enjoy the trail.

Cheers

Glad to hear you enjoyed it and appreciate the sport.

I'll be going the opposite way. I find I'm very slow especially on the flats and XC riding just doesn't lend itself well to keeping a high cadence and going quick. At least not on the technical trails I ride, so I'm thinking of building up a cyclocross bike to do some road-riding with (with a quick swap of tires) and to not get too far from the dirt I love.

Tim, Tim, Tim, - you must respect all disciplines (well most anyway) of cycling. I went to MTB after BMX many years ago because my parents didn't want me out on the road with the cars (this was in the 80s) now a middle aged white guy I got back into cycling on the road but have been longing for the trail...so I just ordered a Cannondale Rush 800. Woo hoo.

I can't wait.

Yep, all flavors of cycling have their degree of dificulty. Mountain biking involves rough terrain, which is far more abusive than many think.

It's easy to look at BMX and assume it's tough....it looks tough. It's easy to assume road cycling is easy, since it looks it....road cycling is not easy, but it's not near as tough as the other two more extreme flavors.

Cyclocross is just the freak we all love anyways :)

yay!!! a roadie went mountain biking!!!


yay!!! a roadie knows how hard it is now!!!


thank you for trying it out! i'm glad you got this experience.... i remember the first time i went real mountain biking... it was amazing, and tiring. I started on my no suspension, 24" wheeled, 14 speed, 50 lb, magna "mountain bike". It was torture, i know what you mean...

Cyclocross is just the freak we all love anyways :)

There is something obscene about Cyclocross that just draws me to it. I intend to enter at least one cyclocross race this autumn with my hardtail and build up a CX bike over the winter.

I'm a failed roadie.

Whoops, did I say that out loud?

1 expert trials section can be more demanding than a 12 mile XC ride. Give it a shot somtime.

There is something obscene about Cyclocross that just draws me to it. I intend to enter at least one cyclocross race this autumn with my hardtail and build up a CX bike over the winter.
Yes! Obscene is a good word. Also, absurd and insane comes to mind. God, I love cyclocross!

What fun is a bike that you cant hop up a curb on? :D Mountain biking keeps me in touch with my youthful glory days of bmx and cruising around town causing trouble. Road biking would be too much like work for me.....thats what I run for. :)

i always wondred the beginnings of and would have loved to see the beginnings of cyclocross. SOME guy deciding hey, lets ride my road bike on this trail. I bet that was intersting.

I absolutely hate running, between it being so much work and my knees being bad to begin with, running sucks for me. Now i've done some road biking, it was easier on the knees, but sucked like running in the aspect of being work. I find road biking boring because the terrain you ride on is boring. The only running i enjoyed was trail running, but with said knee problem it sucked. Mountain bike encompasses my loves, trails and cycling and makes riding my bike fun.

I'm glad I grew up in the beginning of BMX, and not cruisers and ten speed road bikes. I still have a 24" BMX cruiser, couple of MTB bikes, a road bike, and a fixed gear bike. After riding all these different bikes, I come back to the same series of thoughts. Dirt, good. Dirt is just more fun than asphalt. I also find that dirt is more forgiving than asphalt on wipe outs.

i always wondred the beginnings of and would have loved to see the beginnings of cyclocross. SOME guy deciding hey, lets ride my road bike on this trail. I bet that was intersting.

I've been lurking in the cyclocross sub-forum here and learned the following. Right after World War II, after Belgium was liberated, the roadies there wanted to get back to riding presumably because the Nazis prevented road races.

As it was late in the season (autumn, winter), and the roads were pretty much destroyed from the war, they decided to ride through farmer's fields and stuff doing laps for 1 hour. The reason why laps were run and for a short period was because and they didn't want any riders from freezing.

I ride the Fullerton Loop on a fairly regular basis.

The very first time I was on an old hardtail and my buddy on a very nice, "fully" with top end components. After leaving the Courthouse to where we turned to head down the first descent/singletrack, my buddy was long gone. I had to get off the saddle and use my legs as suspension. My buddy sat and rode his "couch" all the way to the first climb.

Years later I now have a nice fully as well. Although right in the City, the Loop can be very technical and the descents scary (two in particular tend to plucker me up) but I have to say the full suspension bike has taken some of the scare out of my ride.

Now what amazes me about the Loop is that I see how types of bikes out there; nice full suspension riges, hard tails, hybrids, comfort bikes and even old road bikes. Those "roadies" are the ones that really impressed me. Just goes to show you its really not the bike - it IS the rider that counts!!!!

I almost became a roadie.

A few years back I had a nice Trek 1400 complete with triathlon bars fall onto my lap. Took it out for a few spins and rather liked it. The trouble was that people in New England drive like **** (have no lane discipline) and I didn't want to get killed. I've already had a senior citizen run me off the road once (lucky me I was in a car) and I don't need that again.

I gotta say that I respect your courage in riding on public roads with cars screaming by you, that's what got me deeper into mountain biking................ that and the quiet of the woods.

You discredit yourself too much. You'd probably be surprised how much better you'd do on a more capable bike. I started out on a Trek 800, it was pretty rough :) Of course that was a few years ago when my only prior riding experience was... well, none really.

But hey, you made it out alive. Good job!

I started when i was probably about 7\8 on a fixed gear kids bike. Now at least i'm at a Trek 800 sport. I love biking anywhere though. Prefer mtn biking. Apology accepted. Now Go do it again!!!