What is a Mountain Bike?

[petitpal]

Voila!

That is genius with a capital M

 

[Woz]

Recumbents?

And Mountain Recumbents?

That's pretty wacky. Someone had to do it though.

I was thinking of tandems too, which also exist across the spectrum of different purposes (although
much less now on the track since they were dropped from the Olympics and Worlds since it was
too dangerous).

BMX I suppose firmly goes in Off road as an enclosed subset.

 

[petitpal]

Recumbents?

And Mountain Recumbents?

That's pretty wacky. Someone had to do it though.

I was thinking of tandems too, which also exist across the spectrum of different purposes (although
much less now on the track since they were dropped from the Olympics and Worlds since it was
too dangerous).

BMX I suppose firmly goes in Off road as an enclosed subset.

There used to be a couple of tandems racing on the Midlands circuit BITD. It was always a huge kick in the ego when you made it down some knarly bit of single track, feeling smug for surviving, to look over your shoulder and see a tandem bearing down on you!

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re:

I don't know much about the history of the balloon tyre post boy bikes but it seems to have been an all American phenomenon, most other cultures moved to narrower tyres as road quality improved. According to Charlie Kelly there was only one usable tyre available to the US pioneers, the 2.125" Uniroyal Knobby.

So the Marin Mountain Bike Hall of Fame 2" and wider tyre ruling could be seen as an attempt to restrict those inducted to US based pioneers and those who used the later tyres that developed from the 'MountainBike" tradition. If so it doesn't quite work as intended as the 'Tracker' based Ralegh Bomber is still eligible as are bikes that used 2" plus wide Finnish Nokia Hakkapeliitta tyres.

Ruled out would be peope asociated with:

*mountain bikes that use tyres less than 2" wide

*cyclocross bikes

*English 'Tracker' bikes with their knobbly cycle speedway tyres.

*bikes that used French 650b balloon tyres:
*like the custom built Roughstuff bikes like those used by Roughstuff Fellowship members like John Finley-Scott (already inducted),
*and the French VCCP (already inducted).

*It could also rule out the US 700c (29er) pioneer like Bruce Gordon and his followers that use the 700x43c Rock'n'Road tyre.

 

[Stiff_Orange]

At about 4.30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9_Fs1QtsOY

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re:

That's a 'Tracker' bike - cycle speedway tires and cowhorn handlebars on whatever frame would fit.

It's actually the first video of a 'Tracker' bike that I have ever seen because they died out long before before the internet existed.

They were pretty commonplace all around Britain in the 50s,60s,70s and early 80s and were usually homemade by teenagers inspired by watching motorbike scrambling on TV. It's a part of UK cycling history that is almost forgotten and there are only a few still photos of the bikes to be found on the internet. However, there are probably hundreds of photos languishing in old family photo albums.

The fact that they were sometimes used in Cyclocross races is not that surprising given their long history and the co-existence of the two off-road cycling traditions. It's also likely that some people took Cyclocross and 'Tracker' bikes on roughstuff rides or that a roughstuff bike could have it's mudguards removed and be entered in a Cyclocross race.
Many people back then could only afford one bike that would be adapted for multiple uses. Riding to work during the week and racing at the weekend on the same bike was the norm.

 

[Woz]

Re: Re:

Riding to work during the week and racing at the weekend on the same bike was the norm.

And riding to the races. Hard stuff back then. I'm still after some of these nifty gems from the smoothside.

 

[petitpal]

I know bugger all about trackers - so maybe instead of tying ourselves in knots about why the term Mountain Bike came from the US and what does or doesn't belong there... let's have a few new threads about what we were doing. Sorry if I've missed any older ones, but it would be interesting to read about it and celebrate it a bit; if only in the context of itself rather than why it pre-dates (or otherwise) what other people were doing.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

I know bugger all about trackers - so maybe instead of tying ourselves in knots about why the term Mountain Bike came from the US and what does or doesn't belong there... let's have a few new threads about what we were doing. Sorry if I've missed any older ones,

There are quite a lot of 'Tracker' and roughstuff related anecdotes on RetroBike many posted by people who rode them and later moved on to mountain bikes. The problem is that most of them are dotted around the site but the best way to find them is to search "cowhorn handlebars"

Here are some excerpts from an interesting example that illustrates the continuity between the 'Tracker' and later MTB scene:

"At age 10 my Dad came helped me find an old gents' bike in a jumble sale. Once home, I stripped it, cleaned it, attempted the poorest rattle-can sky blue paint job you've ever seen, replaced the cotters in teh cranks (remember those?), put a new gear on the rear wheel (yes, it was singlespeed - pre-dating the singlespeed trend by about 20yrs), bunged a pair of cowhorn handlebars on it, a single brake, and rode the heck out of it all over the commons and woods in the locale. In those days (1975-80) we called them 'track bikes' since we rode 'tracks' in the woods. It was my fun bike, my commuter bike (to school) my get-away-from-home bike to my friends' homes 5-10 miles away.

In my late teens I forsook bikes for cars. My first car being an MG Midget.. and I left bikes behind as at that age they seemed childish toys, as I'm sure they do for many late teenagers taking their first steps to driving and adulthood".

"Then, Mountain Biking happened.

I bought a very used Madison Ridgeback in 1988 and rediscovered my youth spent blatting around the 'tracks' (single track) in the woods. Many years - and many bikes later, I've lived on the Continent and in the USA, biked in exotic places like Moab, Whistler, Lake Como, the French and Italian Alps, all along teh Dordogne.

I've been a sponsored CX racer (in California), met Keith Bontrager, Tom Ritchey, ridden with Shari Kain, raced against Dave Weins (he of course annihilated me - and everyone else in that race - Crested Butte Fat Tyre Fest), knew Bob Seals well (inventor of the Cool Tool) , watched John Tomac race the Kamikaze DH at Mammoth Lakes, and have many, many other fantastic memories".

Here are some threads about 'Tracker" bikes:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=334891
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=200724&start=10

And here is one that starts with the Jack Taylor roughstuff bikes and then moves on to look at the 'Tracker' derived British bikes that used Finnish Hakkapeliitta snow tyres.
viewtopic.php?t=42540

I agree that it would be good to start a new thread that would put all this British pre MTB stuff together.

 

[legrandefromage]

Aged 15 and as fit as a flea (and about the same size before the hormones kicked in [late]) I rode up the Julian Alps at Kranjska Gora on a 12spd Peugeot rental 700c thing with flat bars.

Does that count as a 'mountain bike' - after all, I did ride up a mountain