What Are The Defining Features And Characteristics Of A 'Mountain Bike'?

[hookooekoo]

Skinny non-balloon tyres are hard work off road.

You can run with low pressures and go super slow to spot all the trail features that might cause a pinch puncture and wreck your rims. Or you can run at usual road pressure and get your teeth rattled out. And on rocky trails or slippery trails with mud you don't stand a chance.

I've taken my single-speed road bike from Fleet Moss down Cam High Road, and all the way down the track to Ribblehead, and that was very slow and tedious. Similarly, I once took my single-speed road bike up the road that leads up the back of Ilkley Moor, and ends at the radio mast. There's a way through to Ilkley, but I had to creep down at 2-3mph because the track was so rough.

 

[legrandefromage]

Maybe for just for you?

Others run narrow tires with no issues at all.

And gears too, cycling isnt a punishment!

 

[hookooekoo]

Why on earth did anyone ever invent nobbly balloon tyres? Surely there was no need, no market, and they'd never sell.

 

[legrandefromage]

Why on earth did anyone ever invent nobbly balloon tyres? Surely there was no need, no market, and they'd never sell.

Because the wheels for MTB ended up as 26 inch and not 650b or 700c

BMX cruiser bikes appeared with 26 inch wheels and some of the first purpose built atb/mtb rims were re-rolled 700c Mavic rims, only because there was such a limited range of tires at the time, 26 size being the most common

So, in the US its 1979 and you have your shiny new 'mountain bike' but your only available tyre was a heavy Schwinn and those pesky European manufactured tires are not available due to very high import taxes, BMX was on a dive , there is an opening for just about anyone to bring out tyres to suit this new fangled bicycle that everyone is talking about.

If the mtb wheel had stayed at 650b or 700c tires may have settled at around 32 - 50c widths which you see now on gravel bikes

The Europeans were already on large tires but the 1970's racing bike boom resulted in lots of cheap nasty road bikes with super narrow 'better than those slow old big rubber' tires. So, as the first mass produced MTBs were copies of the originals, big tyres had the right 'look' regardless of what they actually did for the ride itself. Swathes of new tire designs appeared for every new bike/ manufacturer.

Tires can be as balloony or as narrow as you like but its their rolling resistance that counts. Too often a tire can be described as draggy or slow where others (even with gurt' big knobblies) seem to roll happily along with seemingly no resistance.

Cyclocross was narrow and knobbly for decades and long before the mountain bike was born. Sure, it was a weird run/ cycle/ mud thing but there is something to be had with a narrow tire, a few sticky out bits and deep mud...

 

[legrandefromage]

Some moron in that Yorksher Moors, just look at those daft skinny tires!

https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/stus-birthday-bash-aftermath.396910/


What a moron...

 

[hookooekoo]

Cyclo cross is neither fish nor fowl.

The tyres are nobbly, but they're not as wide as MTB balloon tyres, nor as narrow as road tyres.

 

[domo]

Anything made by Kona in the race light era

 

[jimo746]

Craption Competition...

 

[velofrog]

"The Lilliputian asked politely, can I have my bike back please Gulliver…?"

 

[Nickinthecorner]

"You came on that thing? You're braver than I thought."
Or
"Oi, Mister! Where's your mountain bike?"