What is a Mountain Bike?

[k-rod]

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

But was it on an engineered road (gravel or paved), or was it on trails and field ... ?

 

[The History Man]

Just read the whole thread.

I'm riding a mountain bike = I'm watching a video.

Everybody knows what that/they mean, regardless of origin, brand, technology, specification.

The popular image is fixed. Even my lovely wife knows the difference between my road and mountain bikes.

Most don't go further than that.

Throughout history similar technologies have been discovered in parallel with no possible communication between non-competing cultures. Perhaps this is another example. You all built Mountain Bikes.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re:

Throughout history similar technologies have been discovered in parallel with no possible communication between non-competing cultures. Perhaps this is another example. You all built Mountain Bikes.

I agree that bikes have been modified for off road use at various times and in various countries around the world. Sometimes this has been done for practical reasons and sometimes for fun or for sport.

In 1970-80s California they had all the parts required to make a commercially viable off-road bicycle especially fat knobbly tyres that were not available elsewhere. More importantly they had the eyes of the world leisure industry watching out for the next trend that could follow on from windsurfing, skateboarding , BMX etc. Even though the early Ritchey framed bikes were very expensive, due to Californian affluence Fisher and Kelly were able to sell as many as they could make, thus proving there was a market. With just a little bit of marketing know how courtesy of Fisher, the word was out, the entrepreneurs moved in and far eastern component manufacturers raced to California in order to copy whatever they could.

Even back then pre-internet, there was a great deal of international communication. This was essential to the development of the US mountain bike as the lightweight frame-building and component culture, the wide ratio derailleur gear-chains and cantilever brakes all came from Europe. It's even possible that the original Ritchey design owes something to the English roughstuff bike that Tom Ritchey made for John Finley-Scott a year or so before he designed his first Mountain bike.

Meanwhile in Britain, off-road bicycles were seen in a very different light. They were cheap, often homemade, for kids & teenagers, and had been around for the best part of thirty years without very much money being made from them.

Around 1983, Raleigh was caught between following the latest trend coming out of California or following their instinct that there was no long term market for such bicycles. In the end they decided that Mountain Biking was going to be a short lived fad and so they would not manufacture them in Britain. Thus opening up the UK market to those who better understood the potential of the US mountain bikes in the form of Ridgeback, Saracen, Dawes, & Muddy Fox Specialized etc, etc.

But the commercial success of the US mountain bikes doesn't mean that other earlier traditions of off-road cycling should not be recorded by history.

 

[The History Man]

I'm not sure how that Relates to my view you quoted.

Are you saying that somebody is in danger of being written out of popular history?

This also has been the case for centuries. Rosalind Franklin, Alfred Russell Wallace and Joseph Swan bear testament to this.

 

[dyna-ti]

What is a Mountain Bike

I no longer know :shock:

 

[mattr]

Re: Re:

But the commercial success of the US mountain bikes doesn't mean that other earlier traditions of off-road cycling should not be recorded by history.

They will be though. It's the American way. Adjust history to fit their narrative.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

I'm not sure how that Relates to my view you quoted.

Throughout history similar technologies have been discovered in parallel with no possible communication between non-competing cultures. Perhaps this is another example. You all built Mountain Bikes.

I was merely intending give examples of the complex mixture of initial isolation and eventual interaction between the the 1980s Californian bicycle culture and the corresponding British culture. Just because the US culture overwhelmed and superseded the British culture does not mean that was no communication or interaction between them just that the history has been written by the victors.

Are you saying that somebody is in danger of being written out of popular history?

Not so much that someone is in danger of being written out of popular history, but in the case of 'Tracker' bikes that they never got written in, in the first place.

 

[The History Man]

'Victors'. Hadn't noticed that before. Interesting use. Was it a race? Battle? Fight?

One minute you're talking about an exchange of ideas and then a victory. It's confusing. I think as I've said its all part of the same parallel fraternal if slightly different development. I'm not that well informed but have read a little around this.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re: Re:

But the commercial success of the US mountain bikes doesn't mean that other earlier traditions of off-road cycling should not be recorded by history.

They will be though. It's the American way. Adjust history to fit their narrative.

The American historians give mixed messages in this regard, some seem to want to give the impression that everything originated in California in denial of the fact that many of the technologies used in mountain bikes originated in Europe. Whilst some of the US Pioneers like Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly are more inclusive and openly acknowledge that the Mountain Bike was a collaborative venture with influences from many people not all of whom were American.

An extreme example was Joe Breeze's successful campaign to induct the French VCCP into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. Even though the VCCP ceased to exist in 1956 and have no connection whatsoever with the US Mountain Bike, beyond creating a sport similar to mountain biking.
http://mmbhof.org/velo-cross-club-parisien-vccp/

On that basis the Cycle Speedway should also qualify.

The Roughstuff fellowship, Cyclocross and 'Tracker' bikes even more-so because they all have documented links to the early Marin scene.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

'Victors'. Hadn't noticed that before. Interesting use. Was it a race? Battle? Fight?

One minute you're talking about an exchange of ideas and then a victory. It's confusing. I think as I've said its all part of the same parallel fraternal if slightly different development. I'm not that well informed but have read a little around this.

"History is written by the victors" is a quote attributed to Winston Churchill and frequently referred to by historians in order to explain why a version of events can take precedence over another equally valid interpretation. It is not only associated with races, battles, or fights but also with products and their commercial success. In this case the commercial domination of the US Mountain Bike.