[Closed] Define All Mountain Riding!?

there's a mountain, ride all of it? xc with ups and downs and added gnarl. Marketing bull IMO

marketing spin to sell you the bike you didnt know you didnt need.

or just getting out and having fun on a bike.

Its a marketing strapline to make middle aged men spend more money on a bike right?

I mean most of the blokes I see on Orange 5's with bashrings or Giant Regins and the like couldn't ride over a slightly pronounced root without having a panic attack

Don't be so pissy, its a nice catch all for todays riding. Sometimes people are too far up there own behinds..

When bikes were first taken up and down stuff they had to be carried a lot, these days due to better design they can ride things that seemed impossible.

Although i ride with peeps who would get down stuff on any crap old bike that i sometimes think twice about on my 'all mountain bike'

Ha Ha, you fell for it.

Are xc bikes great for dh? Are dh bikes great for xc? All mountain bikes let you pedal to the top and get back down with a shred of style and hopefully some speed.

Its just a compromise bike for those who can't afford/justify a seperate DH bike and XC bike, or cant use an XC bike well enough down a hill.... 😀

or cant use an XC bike well enough down a hill....

Seems to be a lot of those folk about.

I've got a 'trail' bike, doesn't stop me getting out into the hills and trying to ride em.

I ride he same bike over Ben MacDhui, in my local woods and in Whistler Bikepark. I rode the Nevis red and DH on it yesterday. At each end of the spectrum there is inevitable compromise, but it's all fun...

I think all mountain is just what you get when xc and dh go out one night, get a little drunk, and 9 months later you get something that can do reasonable impressions of both.

so..

xc + dh = am

xc + am = trail

am + dh = fr?

A bike you can ride up hills but is designed mostly with descents in mind?

Why does everyone get so upset about these terms?

Hmmmm.....I won a road hill climb on the bike below, came in the top 10 in National Junior XC races, competed pretty well in DH, rode it to college etc. It doesn't get more 'All ****ing Mountain' than that 🙄

[img] http://newimages.fotopic.net/?iid=y9z8z1&outx=600&quality=70 [/img]

[img] http://newimages.fotopic.net/?iid=y9zc1o&outx=800&quality=70 [/img]

http://willwaters.fotopic.net/p21799981.html
http://willwaters.fotopic.net/p21800078.html

So yeah, it's all bollox.

It's a bike you have ridden [u]ALL[/u] mountains on.

Is 'All Mountain' one up the scale from the one that always makes me laugh - 'Aggressive XC'..?

Again: why does everyone get so upset about these terms?

Its a shorthand to describe a certain type of bike.

Chill out FFS!

Marketing Bollox.

It's marketing speak to describe the type of riding that most of us have always done.
But now thanks to MBR and bike company marketing, middle aged IT folk now know that you need at least 3 different bikes with adjustable suspension and geometry to ride the trails (which haven't changed much since mountain bikes first rode over them).

It's like The Sound of Music* song, 'Climb every mountain' but on bikes.

*It might not be but logic suggests it must be.

The problem with the phrase "all mountain" says the rest of you are part Mountain

Has the % carrying/ pushing really dropped much since the rigid days

OK so I'm doing Megavalanche next week ( 🙂 ) - what kind of bike would you say was most suited for doing that?

What % on here have actually been on a mountain on their bikes?

OK TJ but then doesn't that mean that the term 'mountain bike' is marketing bollocks and we should just call them 'off-road bikes'.

Does Pic Blanc count as a mountain at 3300m by the way? 😛

Pic Blanc - can you fall off it? Thats the TJ definition of a mountain. Hills you fall down, mountains you fall off.

ATB ( all terrain bike) is more accurate than mountainbike

What % on here have actually been on a mountain on their bikes?

I have. Lots of them. Topped 40mph more than once off some Alps last weekend......
🙂

I've been up Superbagneres on my AM and saw a lady on a nice silver shopper! Maybe she was AM too..

Has the % carrying/ pushing really dropped much since the rigid days

All mountain is just normal riding for people who live close to be hill/moutains.
That's it.

Agreed with Juan. Its called 'Enduro' over here in the Alps. Turn up for an Enduro here and expect a little more than you would at a UK event!

Strangely I don't see anyone getting too upset about the use the term mountain bike though.

In fact, why should we even pigeonhole bikes at all. When you go into a bike shop to buy a bike, you should just ask for a bike.

'What kind of bike? What kind of riding do you do?'
'God stop trying to pigeonhole everything with your marketing BS, I just want a bike, ARGHHHHHHH!!!!!!'

from memory it was a term 'crack n fail' came up with a few years back 2002 -2003 if I remember...... to sell more bikes that would 'crack n fail' 😉

What % on here have actually been on a mountain on their bikes?

Define Mountain

Snowdon?

Peak District?

Moab?

Colorado Rockies? Pearl pass Mosquitoe pass?

All in my rigid days

ATB ( all terrain bike) is more accurate than mountainbike

Leaving aside the question of how a term defined by usage can be said to be more accurate, ATB is a less accurate description! There is lots of terrain that mountain bikes cannot physically be ridden over.

Just chill FFS. Its a reasonably useful term whether invented by marketing men or not. What do I say if someone asks me what kind of riding I do. Easier to say "all mountain" rather than "I enjoy bits of climbing but really live for the steeper technical descents and don't often do long cross country rides". I definitely don't do "xc", "freeride" or "downhill" (all marketing terms but now accepted). So how do I describe what I do in a couple of words that people instantly get?

ampthill - Member

Define Mountain

Tandemjeremy
can you fall off it? Thats the TJ definition of a mountain. Hills you fall down, mountains you fall off.

this side of the pond it seems to be one up from XC bikes, on the other side it seems to be any route involving a 20ft road gap. Oddly people are convinced they need the same bike for both.

can you fall off it? Thats the TJ definition of a mountain. Hills you fall down, mountains you fall off.

I can fall off a cliff at my local quarry, does that make it a mountain?

this side of the pond it seems to be one up from XC bikes, on the other side it seems to be any route involving a 20ft road gap. Oddly people are convinced they need the same bike for both.

Except that what people would call an all-mountain bike over there is generally something 35lbs or more with at least 6" of travel, coil shocks and forks etc. whereas we would call a Meta or Zesty all-mountain.

I do exactly the same stuff on my bike as I did more than fifteen years ago. Maybe I was ahead of my time? Helvellyn, High Street, Skiddaw, multi days in the scottish hills. Did it fully rigid in them days. It's just comfier now with a bit of bounce and probably a bit quicker.

It's all just XC.

It's not a look, it's a lifestyle.
Something you can't define or pigeonhole.
The rush of the wind through your hair.
The laughter of a child.
It's wedding bells and the smell of fresh-baked bread.
It's waking up in a bus shelter with your face in a puddle of sick, filthy and alone, but at the same time knowing you're truly alive.
THAT's "all-mountain".

'What kind of bike? What kind of riding do you do?'
'God stop trying to pigeonhole everything with your marketing BS, I just want a bike, ARGHHHHHHH!!!!!!'

Next time you're in the pub, try asking for "a beer". If you're feeling like a helpful sort of bastard, ask for "a lager" or "a bitter" depending on your preferences. It'll give you an early idea of what the bike shop will look like if you ask for "a bike" 🙂

When I tried it a few years back, one barmaid gave us random stuff each time (fair play, she got the point), another threatened to throw us out (she said we were drunk, even before we got served).

Lol at mr a

walleater

Hmmmm.....I won a road hill climb on the bike below, came in the top 10 in National Junior XC races, competed pretty well in DH, rode it to college etc. It doesn't get more 'All ****ing Mountain' than that

[IMG] [/IMG]

So yeah, it's all bollox.

I just KNOW that you did this recently. Very recently, yes? Quite the achievement being competitive on that in the last few years on dh tracks.... against modern dh bikes.

If it wasn't then it's a pretty stupid statement really isnt it? But I mean obviously you probably raced it dh last year.

CaptainMainwaring - Member

What do I say if someone asks me what kind of riding I do. Easier to say "all mountain" rather than "I enjoy bits of climbing but really live for the steeper technical descents and don't often do long cross country rides".

In about 95 I was introduced to this bloke by a friend - "This is so-and-so, he's a mountain biker as well".

"Oh," said I, "what bike do you ride?".

The guy looked at me with vague contempt and said "I'm an extreme mountain biker" and walked away.

I'm still puzzled to this day as to what an 'extreme' MTBer was in '95. Did he ride the rooty bits as well as the fire roads? Rad, dude.

Having said that, I can't remember at any point in the last 15 years being asked to define the type of riding I do or going into a bike shop and asking for an all-mountain bike as opposed to a trail bike.

"Oh no sir, we can't possbly sell you that Cannondale Moto, because you've just told me that you are in fact an extreme xc-lite rider."

Gnargnargnargnargnar, I didn't realise that rocks have got bigger in the last 20 years. Anyway, a fairly typical UK (i.e easy...) DH course like the ones at Bringewood and Hopton are pretty well the same as the old courses once organisers realised that holding a DH race down a fireroad didn't quite cut it. Racing was always a toned down version of what we'd ride on a normal ride. The main difference was that 'when it was all fields' the bikes meant we couldn't go as fast as we do now.

So last night I cycled up Fromme, then rode some DH / freeride / and agressive XC trails on my slopestyle bike. **** me, I'm surprised I made it out of the house with all that confusion. I just went for a ride 🙄

It might be marketing bull, but a typical UK XC bike ridden on mountains not more than 600m is all you truly need.

but put that bike in an alpine situation then it s limits are reached pretty quickly 9in terms of braking, tyres, strength etc..) then the breed of 6inch AM bikes are perfect.

Also with many "rally or enduro2 style events everywhere then the 6inch AM bike is the perfect machine.