Did Downhilling Ruin the Sport? Discuss...

[legrandefromage]

Fashions change , the moneymen move on - DH was fashion, Freeride (bleuaarg!) was fashion, narrow tyres are back (apparently its the new golf...) £3k road rigs are flying out the shops for the 40/50 somethings.

You're neglecting the fact that cycling has been around a very long time - pre MTB, espesh for our narrow tyred friends -

The technology was always there - shimano had a hydrolic disk brake available in the '70s, Alu frames were about and Ti was used in components all over the place. Frames were well advanced for racing.

All that had to happen was to add a set of old motorbike handlebars and some fat tyres.

The biggest advance was running a cassette through a computer program to come up with with Hyperglide - just about the biggest advance ever.

This meant cheap MTBs were far easier and more comfortable to ride than cheap road bike clones. Increasing sales meant more public awareness as fashion took over and Big money coming into MTBing. This took it out of the cottage industry and into the mainstream.

Same thing as with sportswear - now a huge business, even though hardly anyone buys a £95 pair of Air Max to go jogging in...

Thinking further - its the moneymen that kill stuff off by making it unfashionable to own something so, that and peer pressure makes you want new. As we get older, we dont suffer so much.

Unfortunately we need some of the big money to keep our wheels turning - as long as Yoof keeps buying new, we will have plentyfull supplies of stuff to keep us amused (perefect example - my 4g Ipod - 'oh, thats an old one!' exclaimed my friends 19 year old daughter - I only bought it in 2004.... :? )

 

[Sam R]

interesting discussion this, nowt like nostalgia and all that. I think what is lost is that many people who now going mountain biking feel they need things like body armour and 5" of travel to go round trail centres. There seems to be little of the getting out there mentality left. That said, Singletrack and to a lesser extent MBR always have articles on big adventerous rides so the desire still clearly exists, just now a wider audience are attracted precisely because they can go and ride somewhere where you don't have to map read, get lost, stay out til after dark and spend hours shouldering your bike because what you thought looked like a decent trail turns out to be a unrideable goat track up scree. And to be honest most of the trail centres have provided fun for me when I've been and provide an excellent intro to mtbing for novices - where they can then get fit/skillz for bigger and wilder stuff.

With regards to the bike/armour/baggies thing - whilst I think that some people do look a bit silly riding very slowly around a smooth groomed track on their Enduros and clad in 661 clearly having been taken in by the marketing, at least they are riding. Mountain biking and gear freakery have gone hand-in-hand since day 1 so it's no surprise. Clearly though, we are the enlightned. But I wouldn't feel nearly as smug if everyone had a penchant for steel and SPDs!

 

[Wold Ranger]

MTB's

I started into MTBs' from a roadie background to get away from the traffic and because I lost 3 roadie friends in fatal car/bike incidents in 18 months. I rode basically XC trail for years. The Jump/Freeride DH thing I believe took off from folks wanting the fun aspects of the sport without the lungbusting aerobic fitness requirements needed for long XC trail riding. A lot of my mates crossed back over into road as they wanted the benefits of fitness etc without the knocks and maintenance issues of off road. A few went into DH and are still loving it years later.

 

[missmyfat]

Some like xc because they have not got the skills for downhill/freeride/ 4x.

Like me!

Some would prefer to test their handling skills and nerve than to put in hours of coughing up lungs to increase their fitness. I see no problem with that, if I had any talent I would probably be the same.
Instead now I am older I have neither the talent OR the fitness!

 

[Wold Ranger]

Down Hill

I do mainly flattish trail riding with a few small technical climbs and drops, as I am wrong side of 50 now, its not so much the graft up hills, as the self preservation with DH, seen a few nasties over the years, including barbed wire/rider interface, and an impalation of a poor guy with a broken branch going right through his shoulder!