Mountain Bikes and Why I Built This Site

I created this website because I have a passion for riding mountain bikes. Back when I was in college I bought my first mountain bike to get around campus easily. It wasn’t until I was mid way through the semester before I decided to take it off-road. There wasn’t a lot of trails to ride so I found a forest service road to ride on and simply loved it.

I’ve always loved bikes. When I was in grade school kids were riding bikes that were called Moto-Bikes. They were what I would call the first iteration of the mountain bike. They had these big knobby wheels and had shocks front and rear. They were made by motorcycle companies. They were big and heavy and my parents wouldn’t buy me one. So I took an old beater bike from my grandma’s and converted it as best I could. All I know is I could do catwalks with the best of them. I rode that no-suspension bike everywhere my friends did on their fancy Moto-Bikes.

When I got old enough I convinced my dad to help me buy a real 10-speed bike. I paid half and he paid half and we went to Birmingham, Alabama and I bought a Schwinn Le Tour III. I rode that bike all over the county. It wasn’t until I went to college before I bought myself another Schwinn sport bike. Then I bought a Schwinn mountain bike. Somewhere in there I bought myself a Supergo mountain bike. Yea I know. WTF right?

After I graduated from school and got a job I decided to buy a a better mountain bike. I bought a Giant 870. I still have that bike. I changed out the front fork a few times but overall it was a great mountain bike. I rode it all over the North Georgia mountains. I took a job in Nashville and saved up some more money. I knew I wanted to buy a full-suspension bike. I had my mind set on a nice 26 inch Trek Fuel. I went to a Trek Demo Days event in Chattanooga, TN and discovered that I really liked a 29er. Specifically I ended up buying a Gary Fisher Hi Fi Pro 29er. That bike is incredible.

That is the quick and dirty history of my mountain bike purchases. All I know is that whether the bike was an old steel frame Western Flyer from days of old or a brand new cutting edge, cost more than my car, dual suspension mountain bike, I simply loved taking my bike off road and exploring trails. Today there isn’t that much exploration. For one I live in Middle Tennessee where the mountain biking opportunities are rather sparse. But when I go for a mountain bike ride I I typically stick to the known trails around the Southeast or take a ride on some forest service roads. Either way it is just nice to be able to get outdoors in the woods or country and go for a ride.

I’ve done a few mountain bike races down in Georgia. Racing can be very hard. It seems if you are competing you are going full throttle for the whole race. It is very hard to recover. It’s not like on the road where you can find places in your ride/race to recover a bit from the extreme effort. No, in a mountain bike race it seems you are gassed the whole way.

This website is hopefully going to be where I talk about mountain bikes and mountain biking. My experiences and those things that I see in the industry. We’ll see where it goes. I have a lot of interest in the activity and opinions about bikes, races, trails and equipment. If it is about mountain bikes I think I’ll probably talk about it.