Whilst rad, mountain biking isn’t all gnar, and by presenting it like that, lots of people are missing out an all the easy fun that mountain biking could offer them.
Matty Johnson is a former professional baseball player who now makes mountain biking content for his YouTube channel. He discovered mountain biking five years ago, and in that time has pushed himself to ride harder features.
In this video I will be talking about some misconceptions when It comes to mountain biking and how all the expensive bikes and difficult trails are not what mountain biking is all about.
The topics he covers have a lot of overlap with the agenda of Reframing MTB. What do you think? Is there room for all styles of riding? Do we see enough of ‘just riding along’? Or is it boring to watch, but fun to do? How would you encourage more people to give mountain biking a shot?
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To him.Â
To others MTB is whatever the hell they want to define it as.Â
Nobody is lying, if anyone is showing a lack of integrity it is people whose greater motivation is seeking validation via disingenuous opinion pieces like this.Â
you’ll get no better example of this than to ask a cross section of experienced riders (i.e., has been at it long enough to know what they like and get to the appropriate skill and fitness to enjoy it) to describe their ideal “one bike to do it all".
Someone will tell you how a 170mm enduro is ideal as it can handle uplift/park riding but is “still an efficient climber."
And the next reply will be an XC hardtail which apparently “can handle every UK trail" while being tolerable on tarmac.
Slight issue with that, having had 13-14 years off MTB-ing and returned: What we used to call XC is now considered gravel riding for some… it’s like expectations have changed. So has the bike market.Buying a new bike recently, I was effectively pushed onto a 29er with more travel. That’s how the market has gone I guess. Now my rides suit the FS 29-er bike that I bought… I’m still enjoying myself, and I’m still a big chicken.But the bike’s changed my riding. I wasn’t seeking that when I went out shopping in the first place… it just happened. 🤷♂️Classic victim of bike market ‘progress’, and I’ve been sucked in to riding a penny farthing (29-er). 😂A genuine question: Youngsters tend to want MTBs… but they generally don’t ride off-road. It’s like they want the coolness of being on a MTB. I wonder how much of this hype is to drive the market at the bottom end (i.e. Carrerra bikes with ‘wing wang’ forks), which might be the most profitable? 🤔
What I call XC I mean in the style of a current XC format race – although doing that riding in a non-competitive-and-allowed-to-stop-to-catch-your-breath-manner, and it could be on bridleways, trail centres, or your local woodland.
A mix of “made" and natural obstacles/challenges, uphill, downhill and flat; on a bike meant to be equally good at all of it.
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Mixed surface touring might have a cool new name and 14 years ago a contemporary XC bike might have been the best choice. But I wouldn’t have used that as the definition of XC.
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Richard Cunningham had some good words to say on this.
In the 90’s MTB boom, a mountain bike was the thing to have for most people… because compared to the possible alternatives of a 90s road bike 17mm tyres, 44×20 bottom gear, or a hub geared shopper/townie…
you had a gear range that was appropriate for a less than fit person to ride on a variety of grades, up and down; a seating position that was comfy for a few hours and gave you a good view of traffic; brakes that worked; and tyres (all 1.9″ of them!) that were still at a ridable pressure after leaving it in the garage for 2 weeks that could handle dirt and going up and down curbs while still working on tarmac.
These days there are so many more options on the spectrum, but the mental association remains.
I’d argue that in 2025, if those are your only metrics for a bike, then my hugely expensive trail bike is inferior in every way to the below bike at ~10% of the cost.
https://www.halfords.com/bikes/hybrid-bikes/boardman-hyb-8.6-mens-hybrid-bike-2021—silver—s-m-l-frames-366198.html
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Yeah.Â
MTB peaked a while ago, imho. I still love it even if I’m no longer really aligned with it as a ‘thing’. But would I invest in it if there was an MTB industry tracker? Nope. The trend doesn’t look good – reduced earnings, high competition and low PODs, high cost of entry and a shrinking customer base – plus a proposal presentation that promises more than it can deliver, as the article here gets into. You’d hope you’d have got out when it was stagnating pre-covid. Along that line of thinking there’s certainly small companies you would want to back, but not the overall industry.Â
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On the marketing side, imho if MTB marketers had more of a clue or better grasp of reality and what customers wanted there wouldn’t be so many people struggling to ride gravel bikes off-road*. I mean, how have gravel bikes become the default ATB? How did most MTB brand mess that up? If your riding is about the off-road but it’s still ATB more than BPW .. drop bars make no sense. That’s why CX bikes weren’t the boom thing of the mid-late 80s, ‘mountain bikes’ were. But in recent years Rapha probably had more influence than any MTB brand in what a lot of people ride for mix terrain stuff.
*I know, some of us like underbiking and I love drop bar bikes that can go off-road. But the size of the gravel bike sales / market for actual light-duty off-road use says to me that the commonly-marketed MTB side of things like FS bikes, goggles, cutties, jumps and all that is being rejected and has been sidelined by the majority of riders (riders as in anyone who ride a bike for active leisure – roadies, gravellers, MTB, tourers, etc).Â
Interesting Q. I think they don’t want the uncoolness of a road bike and they want to pull wheelies. It’s also not really an ‘MTB is cool’ thing, it’s an urban bike culture thing.Â
The game changer for me: When UCI finally allowed disc brakes on CX bikes… thank god! Gravel bikes were born after that I think?Why on earth do muggles have to wait for pros to adopt things? It’s a bit backwards IMO.
To be fair, pros did adopt gravel bikes after normal riders already had.
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Gravel is not XC riding
Similar here, or when discs for drop bar STIs were available, more accurately. There were people/brands making “heavy, race-illegal, I don’t get it.." disc-equipped CX bikes for byway bashing some years before the UCI allowed them in races in 2010-11 (I was one of them). Who needs racing to sell a bike.. Another point a lot of MTB marketing seems to miss.Â
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Very much this
My spanish friend called my bike “a countryside bicycle". She was right.
I evolved from the early 90’s XC over the years as fashions changed, more trail centres were built and bikes became more capable. This went turbo after my riding pals gave up for a while as my riding became exclusively trail centres or short technical rides I’d drive to.
Then in covid my pal got a gravel bike so I did too. We really enjoyed gentler rides retracing our childhood routes. Gave me back my XC buzz and now the majority of my riding is from home in the Dales. GB changed to carbon XC and I dropped as much road as possible. Planning on some longer rides this summer so just need to finish building my new Spur and I’ll be off!
I had planned to change my bigger bike but I’m not sure how much use it will get now so I’ll be keeping it unless an insane offer lands in my lap.
I often call my bike something shorter but similar. Often around the same time I’m changing bearings or bleeding brakes…
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Any different to people doing a school run in a 4×4? It’s just an image thing. They could go off road, but they never will. See also divers watches, etc, etc.
One thing that concerns me about gravel is roadies bringing their attitude to the dirt.
Sure ,on the road ride big but there’s no place for chain gangs when there’s other people enjoying the countryside. If I encounter a walker I slow down and say hello. Gravel roadies seem to just charge through.
I’m only basing my findings on videos of someone I follow on you tube but some of it makes me wince.
It is all riding bikes and all good, I don’t see why people get all tribal over it.
I have a hardtail, I do thousands of miles a year from the door, bridleways, woodland paths, trips to country pubs, sunsets and getting some fresh air.
I have a full suss, great for trail centres, days out, holidays and big stuff.
I have a road bike that I used to commute on but hasn’t been used in years, I should really get rid of it.
I am about to invest in an ebike for big, big days out.
I say ride the bike you like, where you like, as often as you like and ignore all the background noise.
Long before gravel was popular I’ve seen people on mountain bikes:
-XC riders blast past on a climb with a roadie scowl and no acknowledgement
-“Enduro" riders do the same on descents, sometimes throwing in a trail wrecking skid for good measure.
-Group trail rides with bits on fire roads/ bridleways where those in the back half of the group get the peleton mentality and lose all sense of bodily autonomy, common sense and self preservation and just blindly copy the herd.
I don’t think the choice of handlebars makes people dicks.
“I don’t think the choice of handlebars makes people dicks."
Amen to that.