Mountain Bike History 101 and the Single Speed

With the growing buzz about single speeds and the bike industry answering what many riders request of “back to the roots of mountain biking”, I feel its time we talked about the history of mountain biking and how single speeds mountain bikes fit in.

Like snowboarding, mountain biking has evolved a lot since its first conception. Around the turn of the century it is said that road racers in Europe would race each other to neighboring towns but were allowed to take any shortcut they wanted. Even if it meant that they would be climbing fences or riding through fields. This would evolve into the sport of Cyclo-cross. It became popular after Octave Lapize credited winning the 1910 Tour de France because of his off-season Cyclo-cross training. In 1950 Union Cycliste Internationale, a cycling association that oversees competitive cycling events internationally, held its first Cyclo-cross race in Paris. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Cyclo-cross gained popularity in the US and in 1975 Berkeley California. was the site of the first US National Championship.

Also around that time in California, people were starting to take old fat tire cruiser bikes and modify them with gears and BMX style handlebars. After people started racing these modified fat tire bikes, people started to think about improving the bikes. One of the first things improved was the wheel hubs and breaking system. Racers were always having to repack the bearings in the wheel because of the speeds they were reaching while racing down hill. Racers started to build new wheels combining road wheel hubs and stronger rims to handle the bumps off road.

In the early 1980’s road bike manufactures started making bikes for the mountain bike arena. Using the technology of the time, these new bikes were lighter and stronger then the old fat tire cruiser bikes. Like road bikes, mountain bikes go through the same kind of trends. In the mid 1990’s the single speed trend started with the road bikes and moved its way to mountain bikes by the late 1990’s. The start of the trend for road bikes was from bike messengers. They started taking the gears off their road bikes and making them into single speeds. The reason single speeds appealed to them were because they were more reliable and noticeably quicker and easier to pedal.

Fast-forward to today and you will notice that bike manufactures are now starting to produce single speed mountain bikes. Just like bike manufactures answered the trendsetters’ call to make mountain bikes in the 1980’s they are doing the same for a new bunch of next generation innovators. The benefit today is that technology has come a long way, components on bikes are better then ever and more reliable.

So why should you get a single speed mountain bike? Well single speed mountain bikes are not for everyone. They lack the gears that allow you to make up hill climbs easier and down hill descents faster. That’s not to say you can’t go fast down hill. You just won’t be able to do it as efficient with out gears. If you want a mountain bike that is easier to maintain, more responsive when you pedal, and are looking for a great workout, single speed mountain bikes offer all of that and more. There is nothing wrong with either type of mountain bike. It is more of a personal preference. If you’re looking at getting a new bike I strongly encourage you to look at single speeds. There are some great ones out there and they are a ton of fun to ride.

In the next couple of months we are going to bring you every single speed mountain bike in production that we can get our hands on and put them through their paces. We are working on some of our favorite picks right now but if there are specific bikes you want to hear about let us know.   All I can say is “Are you ready for the ride!”