Think back to the early days of mountain biking. A bunch of friends, getting to the top of the hill any way they could, not needing to ride up at any great pace, saving themselves for the real buzz, the ride back down. It didn’t matter who got tot the top first, as long as everyone made it and then could share a chat, maybe a beer and a toke, before they pointed their rigs back downhill. The hair was as flowing as the conversation, and that was just the guys.
The weight of their bikes wasn’t a factor, just making it to the bottom with functioning brakes and their jeans not tangled in the chain was the most important thing. Most of the bikes and parts were derived from road-going machines, and most of the early wheels were either cut down and re-welded road hoops, or beach cruiser wheels which came in some strange diameter. Innovation and invention was strong from the start, with a bunch of them making their own frames and cobbling together parts. They shaped the development of this new sport, which in turn helped revive and push road bike technology too.
While racing down the hill was the way it all started, soon the predominant racing genre would become riding around in circles, up long climbs and then back down again. Even though the climbing was the major element, the races were dubbed cross country. Downhill was usually raced on the same day, on the same bike, on the same part of the XC course. Gradually downhill technology advanced with suspension at both ends getting longer, while the XC bikes (and riders) looked to go on diets that would make Jenny Craig envious. Somewhere in between, regular mountain bikers just rode their bikes on the trails, up and down, without a label of their own to identify with.
Sometime in the last few years, the bikes that most people ride on most trails most of the time took on an identity of their own. The marketers, in a moment of brilliant clarity, called them trail bikes. But what were these trail riders going to do if they wanted to compete every now and then? The bikes didn’t fit into the XC category (too heavy, too much travel), they were too under-gunned for proper downhill racing, and most of the riders just wanted to have a bit of fun more than set any PBs or have to wear lycra and shave their legs to be considered worthy of the ‘racer’ tag. What they needed (even if only the marketers knew it) was a new type of racing, where the fun bits, the singletrack and the descents, mattered more than the boring hard bits, the climbs. Enter enduro.
Just about every company at Interbike recently released something that had the word enduro attached to it. Bikes, components, shoes, helmets, clothing, there’s something for everyone to just go and ride with, just like we used to, but now only better. Enduro has maybe not saved mountain biking, but has given it a whole new lease of life by bringing back the core elements of why we ride a bike on trails. Whether that needed a tag or not, well that’s debatable, but I know that the bikes we ride now are some of the most dialled and most versatile that I’ve ridden in my 23 years of mountain biking. They have certainly brought the fun back to my riding, by allowing me to ride faster, with more control and more confidence.
Those hippies back in the 70s and 80s were way ahead of their time in many ways. That the preferred wheel size back then was 650b could have changed the way bikes developed a lot sooner, and the way we’ve arrived at this ‘new’ wheel size via a smaller and then a bigger one is maybe a blessing in disguise. Maybe we wouldn’t have three sizes (soon to be two) to choose from, and all bikes would have at least one component that was a true ‘standard’. The way things are heading though, most trail riders in the next three or four years will be on the medium hoops whether they like it or not; the 26″ wheel holdouts will have nothing left to complain about except the fact they can’t get any tyres any more, and that they secretly wished they’d switched to medium wheeled bikes sooner, because, shhh, don’t tell anyone, they’re actually better.
I get to ride a few bikes in my job, on a lot of varied trails all around the place, and it’s hard to find many bad bikes these days. Whether it’s down to frame design, angles, suspension technology or wheel size, I don’t know. Probably all of those, combined with other factors like wider bars/shorter stems, the banishment of the front derailleur, big fat tubeless tyres, and the best invention in mountain biking in the last ten years, the dropper seatpost. All these things are staples of the modern trail bike, and whether or not they have the word enduro attached to them doesn’t really matter. But I know this; mountain biking is looking healthier than it has since the halcyon days of the early nineties, and racing is becoming popular again because the fun is being put back into it. Heck, I’m even having a crack at one of these new races next weekend too, and I’m actually looking forward to it.
Thanks, enduro.
This is what a modern mountain bike looks like… my new Turner Burner.
The Rise of Enduro – Teaser from Tom Teller on Vimeo.
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@Teocalli
Nothing to do with technique... it's near impossible to have good 'technique' when your seat is jammed in your abdomen and you are so far over the back wheel that the front end is just going where it wants. Having the seat out of the way means you can be positioned over the centre of the bike and move it around like it's supposed to be ridden. That's why downhillers have low seats, and XC guys descend so ungainly. Having your ass anywhere near the rear wheel should never happen.
@936adl
Not really, any trail can be ridden better with a dropper post. I was the same years ago, my mate Josh had one and I poo-pooed it all the time, saying a QR was all I needed... watching him ride away while I stopped and fiddled, then tried to climb again with the seat too low, then stop again, made me take notice. Now, I only really have my seat all the way up if climbing... tight switchbacks, rolling singletrack, any sort of descent really, doesn't have to be steep, just getting the seat even a couple of centimetres lower makes a huge difference. And it's not an age thing, I'm almost 50 ffs, and am riding better, faster, more technical terrain a lot more confidently than when I started in my 20s.
@Harminator and @Chris get it totally.
@brett
Fixed your post. Basing anything on comments on the internet is the short path to lunacy.
Thank goodness for mountain biking giving us stuff like this
@Marko Glad you like the movie. Tell your students they can still get their very own copy from me off the website.;-)
Ride on,
Billy
@Billy Savage
Billy, Quite an honor to have you even find the site, let alone post.
For anyone else, this is THE Billy Savage, the filmmaker.
I just ordered my copy, here is the link: http://www.klunkerz.com/
@brett
From your "first look" article:
I hope you'll keep us posted on how this goes. I'm turning my budgetatus Epic M5 Comp into a 1x9 and trying to do it with the least expense possible. I think my first anti-chaindrop action will be a Wolf Tooth ring. Then go from there. But a clutch mech is simply more than I'm willing/able to do, as I already have an XTR mech on the rear and too many other priorities (that I'm failing to address). I was looking at a Paul Components Chain Keeper, but one look at my seat tube-BB real estate and that idea was dismissed; no way to attach it low enough.
@Nate I like how the first two jumps primed them to go exactly the wrong way on the third.
This year we moved into a slightly bigger apartment, allowing me to get bike #3.
Bikes #1 and #2 are my roadies, a nice one here in Singapore and a bike for Melbourne visits.
I thought pretty hard about what to get for #3, as it needed to fill the gap below my Scott Addict, a bike that I really can't duck down to the shops on, or ride along slowly with my little miss 4 year old. My shoes being the roadie-reverse-heels put paid to the idea of doing anything practical on #1.
So was it to be a SS Roadie? A SS MTB? A town bike with hub gears? Something cheap and easy to maintain were major criteria.
So I have been a roadie for over ten years, but before that I rode MTB (before that, BMX as a young'un). So this is my new shopping and slowly tootling along with the daughter rig.
What? Like I told the wife, it can do those things...
@PeakInTwoYears
No problems so far, haven't dropped the chain once... racing an Enduro this weekend so will see how it goes there. I was considering a BB-mounted top guide for extra peace of mind, but the trails I'll be racing on in Rotorua are pretty tame compared to my home trails in Wellington, so it shouldn't be a problem.
@brett
I just saw this solution, two bashguards at $12/ea (made in my beloved Portland, OR USA so they must be good) in place of my 22- and 42-tooth rings. Pics here and here.
With shipping, this deal would be half the price of a new ring, and it looks like it ought to keep the chain in its proper place, with a bit of a weight penalty but with the functionality of bashguards.
What's your impression? Could I...just possibly, do you think...get away with using my standard XT middle ring, with its tabs and tooth profiles conspiring to rid themselves of my chain and me of my balls when they hit my stem?