Rider Perspective - Wade Simmons

Feb 24, 2011 at 22:45

Mountain biking seems to be a living, growing and evolving sport. It is extremely diverse. It’s hard to think of another sport that accommodates as many disciplines, and one that is constantly being shaped by technology and new product.

Embracing Diversity

If you compare its fraternal twin brother road cycling, there is not too much diversity there. Within the racing realm, you have sprinters, climbers, time-trialers and domestics. In the velodrome, every possible event is milked out of the bike. Doing a randonneur is fun, but you’re just riding a road bike on the road. There is one freak among the siblings, and this is cycle-cross. Some consider it the roots of mountain biking. But, it’s just one event and you guessed it: cycle-cross. We are talking about diversity - “the state or fact of being diverse; difference; unlikeness” - by definition.





BMX, mountain-biking’s gnarlier little brother (referring to wheel size), has diversity, but is limited by gears and wheel size. I’ve seen a few BMX bikes on the trails of Seymour and Fromme, but I’m willing to bet it’s not catching on. The limit-pushing street, dirt-jump and park contests are in their own right more progressive and diverse than mountain biking, observed by the lending of tricks, lines and stunts. But the dirt jumps and skate parks in Florida are not so different than the ones in California or elsewhere for that matter. The point here is that with BMX there is not much diversity of terrain under tire or possibility of creating a new discipline.

If we look at the more mainstream sports, it is hard to draw parallels. Golf, football, soccer and most other team sports are all great, but are stagnant; they are all kind of linear, if I can use that term. Nothing is evolving. On the other hand, skiing/snowboarding follows a bit of a similar path as mountain biking. Both have similar contests in the cross-country and downhill disciplines, but unfortunately you can’t use your boards on dirt, so there’s very little crossover. Just yesterday as I was headed up Cypress for a little ski tour, I witnessed DH‘ers dropping in with 2 feet of snow on the ground. Rideable? For some, yes. Fun? Absolutely!

The sport that everybody holds dear to their heart, and is the undisputed king of cool, is surfing. Who wouldn’t want to be a surfer traveling to beautiful places, slashing nice faces, getting barreled and coming back to shore to hang with the Reef girls. Like mountain biking, it shares the use of different tools for the job; long boards, short boards, fat boards, thin boards, kneeboards, boogie boards and recently, stand-up paddle boards. It also has the equivalent to the shuttle: tow-in surfing. There is a great variety of waves, endless locations and endless size. But what doesn’t change is what is under the board: water, always water- and sometimes no waves.


In contrast, the sport of mountain biking has something for everybody all the time and is different to many. For me, I’ve been lucky to sample most of the disciplines. As a kid, I raced BMX for 9 years, and that experience solidified a love of two wheels. In 1988 I got my first MTB and started to explore the possibilities. Looking back on my MTB history, I have raced XC and DH, held a British Columbia Dual Slalom Championship, competed in Trials, competed in Slope Styles, won a Red Bull Rampage, raced some Super D’s and Enduros, filmed many free-riding movie segments, and have been on many MTB XC vacations with my wife and friends. It really never gets boring: varied terrain and varied bikes.


It saddens me that people might be missing out on all this fun. A short while back, I was being interviewed by Ross Measures, a local young filmer, while bullsh&%ing away, Ross was telling me about a funny story: “Ya man, I woke up and wanted to go XCing”. That isn’t a really strange thing to say, but for a mid-20’s generally DJ’in, Dh’in guy to say he woke up and wanted to go ride cross-country struck me as odd. We laughed and thought it must be because he’s getting old, but I know that he and his buddies, including Geoff Gulivech, get out and shred a little XC. I hope more young adults will do the same. I can’t help wonder, once the tight-jean-wearing-dirt-jumping shredders age a little, will they get bored of the dirt jumps and quit mountain biking all together, or will they move on to another discipline? I can’t think that they will still be doing flip whips or 720’s at the age of 40. I hope they pick up a DH bike and start shuttling or transition into the all-mountain/XC side of things. Diversifying their passion.

A few of my friends have really surprised me lately with their evolutions, or in their cases, mutations! Jerry, who is responsible for a few of the gnarlier Shore trails and all-around shredder, has recently fallen in love with 29ers. I would’ve never seen this coming. In his own words Jerry says, “I feel like I’m monster-trucking over the same old holes”. If I had asked Jerry a year ago if he would ever be riding a 29er, he would have punched me! Now he’s ripping the same local DH trails riding a bike with only 100mm of travel. Another young rider I ride tons with is Arthur, who’s a French import with commendable DH skills and who had a love affair with the flat pedal. There was a time not long ago on our all-mountain rides that I’d mock him endlessly, hammering home the fact that being clipped-in would be beneficial: he never listened. Now, only riding a 29er he says, “I’ll never ride 26 again”, and he only rides clipped-in. He is also tapping into young guy strength with skills and taking pride in kicking our butts.


I enjoy stories like these. It’s an example that things are on the move. You hear in the industry things like: “DH racing is gaining momentum”, and I believe it is, it’s going downhill. All puns aside, I don’t have any quantifiable evidence that it is gaining momentum, but you feel it. And you see it on the sunny weekends up on the hills. All things are growing and evolving. The sport is healthy, I think, well, hope. But I know it will remain healthy if we support and promote all aspects of mountain biking, and it needs to start with the youth. Get those kids out and pedal a little, jump a little, race a little and make it fun. The rest is up to them.

-Wade

---

Check out past Rider Perspective columns: