15 Facts About Mountain bikes

Mountain bikes bike or mountain bicycle is a bicycle designed for off-road cycling.

Mountain bikes are generally specialized for use on mountain trails, single track, fire roads, and other unpaved surfaces.

Mountain bikes are built to handle these types of terrain and features.

Original mountain bikes were modified heavy cruiser bicycles used for freewheeling down mountain trails.

The Mountain bikes sold for about $500 new and were made from 1979 though 1980 .

Mountain bikes can be multi-thousand dollar machines that are purpose built for the discipline they were designed for.

Trail Mountain bikes are usually seen as hard tails, and full suspension frames.

Originally, free-ride bikes sat between all-mountain and downhill in geometry, with frame angles steeper than those found in downhill and higher rider positioning, enhancing maneuverability on technical or low-speed features commonly found on "North Shore" style trails.

Slopestyle and dirt jump Mountain bikes are included in this category by some, due to similar purposes, but the distinction in design is significant.

Slope-style Mountain bikes are used for light downhill or trail riding by many, if not riding jumps on the same scale as professional riders, with their durability and sophisticated suspension designs allowing for extra versatility when compared to dirt jump Mountain bikes.

Mountain bikes cross or "four-cross" is a type of racing in which four bikers race downhill on a prepared, BMX style track.

Competition rules require stock Mountain bikes to have multiple gears for competition, but most riders never use their shifters.

Since the 1980s, mountain bikes have had anywhere from 7 to 36 speeds, with 1 to 4 chain-rings on the crankset and 5 to 12 sprockets in the cogset.

Many new mountain bikes integrate a "full suspension" design known as dual suspension, meaning that both the front and rear wheel are fitted with a shock absorber in some form as the wheel attaches to the bike.

Dual suspension Mountain bikes solve this problem by absorbing this upward force and transmit it into the shocks of the front and rear wheels, drastically decreasing the translation of forward momentum into useless upward movement.