James McKnight - Mountain Biking: Skills, techniques, training

SKILLS TECHNIQUES TRAINING

James McKnight

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2012 by
The Crowood Press Ltd
Ramsbury, Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2014

The Crowood Press Ltd 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 857 8

A special thanks to photographer Chris Jackson of Kingdom Bikes for his great photography.

Also thanks to Bertie Maffoons bike shop in Marlborough, Wiltshire for help with the maintenance sections.

Thank you to my family, friends and to Isobel for helping me with my efforts.

And for their help, thank you to Trek, Osprey, Teva, Royal and The North Face.

Photography by Chris Jackson/kingdombike.

Mountain biking is the off-road form of cycling that has become widespread over the last two decades and is fast becoming the most popular two-wheeled sport. Accessible to all ages, fitness and skill levels, a year-round sport and applicable to any location hillside or plateau mountain biking is perhaps the most versatile sport of the moment.

Bicycles have been ridden off-road ever since their invention; however, the first recordings of mountain biking are hazily recounted from somewhere in the late 1970s when a group of hippies in Marin County, USA, began to take their klunkerz (beach cruisers) to the hills and race down dirt tracks.

During the 1980s, the term mountain bike was coined and Gary Fisher started to produce geared off-road bicycles. From what started so humbly, the sport soon became a craze and by the early 1990s there were televised events, professional riders and a global race series.

Mountain biking is for everyone; its fun, healthy and environmentally friendly.

The sports founders pushed and carried their basic bikes up mountains in the USA.

That craze died off somewhat around the middle of the decade. However, the sport continued to thrive and progress, with new technologies constantly developing the sport and feeding a hungry consumer market. Currently the sport is having a rebirth as adventurers and families alike begin to realize the potential of the modern mountain bike, with an increasing number of trail centres and summer resorts creating an ever-growing abundance of biking terrain, and paving the way for future generations of mountain bikers.

Mountain biking was born as a competition sport and yet only considered mildly competitively natured. The majority of riders were hippies and the race meeting was considered more important than the racing itself. However, with the increase in popularity and the invention of the saleable mountain bike, the sport sprouted many high-profile competitions, some of which continue to run to this day:

Mountain biking is a world-wide sport.

Mountain biking was invented in the USA and the country has always had a strong presence on the mountain bike scene, but these days there are other nations who dominate the sport with higher participation figures and champions across the sports disciplines.