Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Actually, the U.S. Army invented the mountain bike back in the 1890's. African-Americans were the first MTN bikers here in the United States of America. They were called, the Buffalo Soldiers. They traveled from Missoula, Montana, to St. Louis, Missouri, back in 1897. A total of 1,900 miles, as an experiment. The U.S. Infantry was thinking about riding special MTN bikes in order to have a greater advantage in surprise attacks upon possible enemies. Rather than have the sound of galoping hoofs of horses announce the planned attack from greater distances away, they could take greater advantage of the element of surprise. However, the invention of the motor car stifled the bicycle war implementation, as the motor car proved to be far to swift for any enemy to adequately prepare for the onslaught of an impending attack. Therefore, the first MTB, was a rigid hardtail, for certain!
- Slim
While the exploits of the 25th Infantry U.S. Army Bicycle Corps are remarkable, they were hardly the first use of a bicycle for traveling where there were marginal or no roads. Roads of the 1890 weren't all that great to begin with and the bicycle of the day resembled mountain bikes of today only because of necessity. The 25th Infantry's trip was 13 years after Thomas Steven's trip around the world on an ordinary and 2 years after
George Loher's ride across the US. He even passed through Missoula and the 25th followed much the same route as he, and Stevens, took to St. Louis.
Nor were they the first military application of bicycles. That distinction belongs to the French Army in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. And those bikes were ordinaries.
Their bikes weren't even 'mountain bikes' since they were slightly modified Spaulding Roadsters. The bikes were modified to carry the heavier loads that soldiers had to carry but they were, essentially, the same bikes that consumers used that were build for the conditions of the roads in 1897...which was abysmal.