Essential Knowledge Guide

What Mountain Bikes Can DO!

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Mountain bikes can be used for an incredibly wide variety of things because of the nature of their construction. Unlike road bikes which are designed to be as lightweight and aerodynamic as possible and are therefore somewhat weak and can become damaged simply by hitting a pothole, mountain bikes are built to take a beating and keep on spinning. With a mountain bike you can ride in the sand, over rocks, through the woods with or without trails, make big jumps and catch serious air, climb hills and mountains, ride through two or three or more feet of water and so much more! Plus, you can ride on the road if you want to.

This section, as it is slowly built, will present you will a series of pictures and video clips of many of the things mountain bikes can do, broken down into skill levels. Look through this area and take note of the things you would like to do on a bike, and the things you would never consider doing on a bike. Later you'll use this information to help choose an appropriate mountain bike.

First Timer
Your first time riding a mountain bike might occur at a bike shop or at a friend's house. You'll probably ride on pavement, grass or maybe on the beach. You might quickly move on to riding on sidewalks, on the street, around the yard, through the park or up and down small hills. Perhaps you'll head out to some local trails and ride in the dirt, clay, sand, leaves, rocks... whatever the local trails are composed of. (most organized parks have the trails marked so inexperienced cyclists don't get in over their heads)

Beginner
As a Beginner you have decided you like mountain biking and are spending more time out on the trails exploring more types of terrain. You may start jumping into the air a little or getting extra speed to race around corners. You might ride over roots, rocks, curbs and hit some small steep inclines and declines. As your skills improve you'll try bigger hills, going faster, and rougher trails. You'll probably attempt to do things you aren't capable of yet and fall over a few times. But that is how you learn. Yes mountain biking is a great deal of fun, and best of all, it's all human powered.

Intermediate
As an Intermediate you are now looking for challenges, both in trail difficulty and speed/distance. You are faster, stronger, and able to handle a wide range of terrain and obstacles on the trail. You are reasonably comfortable jumping through the air and slamming through bermed corners. You might smash over fallen trees and stacks of logs, roll over boulders like they were dirt clods and hardly slow down. You'll be considering long steep climbs and downhills, bigger jumps, off-camber roots (roots on a slanted trail), extremely rough trails, and some observed trials stunts like balancing in place and hopping around one two or even one wheel. And your rides will always be increasing in distance, into dozens of miles in a single ride.

Expert
To my thinking, an Expert is simply an Intermediate rider with a lot of experience on the trail and is therefore armed with the knowledge necessary to handle whatever situations might occur. Oh, and throw in a good dose of increased speed, endurance and strength. Same trails, increased abilities.

Observed Trials
Observed trials is a very disciplined area of mountain biking that requires a fine-tuned sense of balance, delicate use of front and rear brakes, intuitive use of pedal force, and a near complete melding of human and machine. Observed trials is a strange concept to convey. First of all, it's called bicycle observed trials because a competition is observed by a judge, many judges in fact. The trials rider attempts to navigate an obstacle course while staying on his/her bike, even though the rider may have to move from the ground to the top of an automobile, then across a gap of several feet onto a stack of logs, ride along the top of the logs uphill then drop several feet straight down onto a pile of ragged boulders, then hop across a series of 50 gallon drums setting upright spaced three feet apart etc. Of course you can't do these things riding in the normal sense, it's all handled by hopping, pivoting, balancing, lunging on two tires or even one tire. A rider has to complete these obstacle courses within a set period of time (typically five minutes) and cannot touch 'anything' with his/her body except the bicycle. The judge is there to make sure the rider does not use his/her body in any way that is not allowed and that the rider stays on the course. If the rider loses balance he/she can put their foot down but this is counted as a 'dab' or a point against the rider. Both feet down at one time is automatic disqualification for that obstacle course and is counted as 5 bads. A competition normally consists of five or more courses. 5 single dabs is a disqualification on any single course. The rider with the lowest points wins. Obviously, trials is incredibly challenging, demanding and can be dangerous and it's certainly not for everyone.

At the time this article was posted, virtually all the video clips contained in the Video Search Engine cover observed trials.