Clive Forth - The Mountain Bike Skills Manual: Fitness and Skills for Every Rider

Mountain biking was still very much in its infancy when Clive and I first met as teenagers in the early nineties. We both lined up on many a windswept start line, ready to take on a freshly cut trail through a wood or a forest or just around a farmers field. Mountain bike racing was an overnight success but, today, its about far more than racing its the freedom that comes from riding a mountain bike out on the trail, at one with nature and the bike.

If we fast forward 20 years from those early races, Clives book illustrates how mountain biking has grown and flourished into a global phenomenon. History is something we often take for granted, so why look back when theres so much more to look forward to? After all, isnt one of the mainstays in our skills instruction: Look for the nearest high point to you as far down the trail as you can see it?

For mountain bikers, our history and our roots are important (were not talking visual performance cues here). Mountain bikers have shaped the way we ride, where we ride and what we ride. In life, people talk about a persons fingerprint being seen across their chosen field and Clives is undoubtedly across mountain biking. As a close friend and confidant, Ive witnessed Clives influence his insight and skills as a rider have enabled him to spot new trends in mountain biking and take the lead in many new mountain bike disciplines and locations, way before they break through to the mainstream.

Clives father, Bob, was a talented amateur racing car driver; he ensured that Clive had a good understanding of the physics of speed from an early age. This, along with Clives natural flair and ability to manage energy, makes him a natural on a mountain bike. Riding with Clive, and witnessing his skills first hand, heavily influenced the development of my mountain bike skills training system, right from the very early days of its inception and development. His skills and ability as a downhiller, dual rider and dirt jumper back in the day certainly made me ask questions in my mind; the answers have set the direction that the development of the skills system has taken me. Youll read all about Clives insight into the world of skills coaching as you work your way through the book.

Its been said before, but as a rider Clives been there, done it, got the t-shirt and cleaned his bike with it. His unique orbit and take on mountain biking gives him a great perspective. He shares that perspective in this book to take a look back at all the advances in mountain bike technology, trails and skills training, along with all the highs (and some lows) that have influenced and shaped mountain biking and a generation of mountain bikers, and continue to do so. Read on and enjoy.

Ian Warby

Senior Development Officer for mountain biking at the Cyclists Touring Club (CTC) and proprietor of Fire Crest Mountain Biking.

For me, riding is everything it makes me who I am. I have ridden a bike for as long as I can remember and started racing way back in 1988. I used to race 100cc karts nationally but I was always frustrated at how inaccessible the sport was, whereas mountain biking was available 24/7. While I was growing up near multiple riding spots, the temptation of leaving my urban surroundings and escaping to the woods was overpowering. My friends and I would spend hours and hours at the local jump spots, messing around riding hills and getting air. We had a ball growing up and the playtime gave us a skill base that we often took for granted.

As the sport continued to grow in popularity, and more and more people began adopting the mountain bike and hitting trails, there arose an obvious need for guides and tutors. The one thing I noticed about the new breed of rider was their lack of technical ability and general knowledge of the sport. I could only put it down to the fact that they were in too much of a hurry to ride their bikes after a hectic week at work: they neglected to practise their core skills.

There was hardly anyone teaching the basic skills and I needed a new challenge: my company MTBSkills was formed. I set about breaking mountain biking down into a structured skills set and created various methods of delivering the message. I tried and tested my own theories over many years, both on the race course and on the trail, working with top racers, including the 2005 solo 24-hour World Champion Rob Lee. All of this was done before delivering sessions to the general public, and I have had nothing but positive feedback and top results with my work. When the opportunity came to put it all into print, I jumped at the chance.

The concept of the book is simple: read at your leisure and discover how the sport came to be, or simply dip in and out of the chapters to pick up hints and tips on how to improve your setup and riding skills. All the core skills have been captured in sequences to help you see the detail in body position and technique, and accompanying the photographs there is descriptive text to help you further your understanding. I have had great pleasure in producing this book and I hope you enjoy reading it. If you would like to further improve your riding ability, tutors at MTBSkills are available for skills sessions throughout the year.

So where and when did mountain biking begin? As far as recorded history shows, the first bike ridden off road was coincidentally the first ever pedal cycle made. Kirkpatrick Macmillan, a blacksmith from Drumlanrig Castle in southern Scotland, built the first ever pedal cycle and rode it some 68 miles to Glasgow over mountainous terrain back in 1842. The bike was crude, cumbersome and lacked a critical component which, rumour has it, led to the first recorded road traffic accident in the British Isles. Fatigued from his epic ride, poor Kirkpatrick lost control of his bicycle on the slippery, cobbled streets of Glasgow and unfortunately injured a small child in the process.

There are rumours in modern Scottish mountain biking that Kirkpatrick consequently returned to Drumlanrig and invented the disc brake! As to how much truth there is to this I will leave to your own imagination. Throughout history, people have ridden bikes off road. The Italian army used bicycles in the First World War, and the legendary Annie Londonderry rode a bicycle around the world, starting her journey in 1897 and completing it fifteen months later in 1899, a truly epic off-road adventure which took her across Europe, Egypt, Singapore and back to the US.

A replica of the Kirkpatrick Macmillan bike can be seen at the bicycle museum at Drumlanrig Castle.

What we do know from the available evidence is that, from 1955 onwards, a group of friends in the UK, known as the Rough Stuff Fellowship, modified bikes to ride off road on byways and dirt lanes. There is also evidence to show that the members made modifications to various existing production bicycles that included the addition of gears and cantilever brakes. Furthermore, custom frames were produced but in no huge quantities. I have also heard tales from some of my fathers friends, brothers David and Ginger Marshall, a couple of guys who build championship-winning racing cars. They were putting front forks from mopeds on modified bikes and riding them in my old haunt Wendover Woods at a similar time.