Types of Riding

Roadies – Road riding is the most known type of biking. There are large tournaments in numerous places in the world that host these road races. The largest and the longest form of road race include the Tour de France, where roadies go on a 3week tour on their bikes.

XC Mountain Bike - Cross-country mountain biking started to become large just in the 20 years, when more reliable bikes and bike components started to be manufactured. With the new materials available such as aluminum, carbon fiber, titanium to make bikes out from, there has been an increase in the number of mountain bikers. At the same time, the development of technologies such as the V-brakes to stop faster which came out in the late 80’s to early 90’s, and also lighter suspension has allowed for the development of mountain biking. There are races that take places in the mountains. Some of these races are both technically and physically challenging due to single tracks, obstacles and its length. The races are on average about 10 to 18 miles long and seem relatively short compared to road biking distance; however with the obstacles and incline and decline of the mountainside provides extra challenge for riders.

Downhill Biking - This is one of the newest forms of biking that became official and started to become popular in the past 10 years. Downhill biking involves going down a side of a mountain at ridiculous speeds. There are various forms of this and the most common ones these are going down a ski slope. Along with going down these slopes at high speeds, there are turns and obstacles such as jumps that are part of the trail. Such high speed racing has made the downhill riders wear full body armor and a full face helmet. Essentially, they look like motor cross riders if some one without the knowledge of downhill bikes sees these riders. Downhill riding is by far one of the most dangerous forms of sports, pushing the limits of human powered vehicle to its fullest.

Trials Riding - This type of riding is an interesting one. Trials is a type of riding you can do anywhere. Some endurance component is there; however, this type or riding deals with the upper body strength. Trials riding include riding and jumping everywhere. Depending on how the rider rides it, the time that your bike tire remains static may be more than the time that the bike tire is spinning. It’s more of jumping on top of benches, picnic tables, hopping between train tracks, riding on the handle for a staircase, doing just about any things you could think of. This type of riding is relatively new as well. The trials riding became more popular once after proper breaking system was introduced, which are hydraulic brakes. They may be the conventional rim brakes or disk brakes, either way, they work beautifully. With these powerful braking systems, trials riders were capable of locking their wheels to jumping on and off things with their back tires.

Freeriding - Fee riding is the type of riding that involves both aspects of trials riding, downhill riding and XC riding. It is a very unique type of riding that involves both endurance and technical skills. If you were in a mountain and doing a free ride, you would not be going through the proper trail, but more of going through drop-offs and going across anything that seems do-able. Freeriding can be done on the streets or in the mountain. If you are riding on the streets, another name for freeriding is “urban riding”. Either way, freeriding is jumping off or/and jumping onto anything in the riders’ way. It is a little different from trials in that freeriding generally involves greater speeds. Dirt jumps can be considered in freeriding category as well.

Moutain Biking UK Issue 167 Dec

BMX - BMX is very similar to that of freeriding, however involves more of either just dirt jumps or skate park type of riding. BMXers utilize a smaller bike and smaller wheels, often 20” compared to mountain bikers/free riders and downhillers whom utilize 26” wheels. There are exceptions to these because some XC riders ride on a 28” wheels (Gary Fisher made this bike) and also some downhillers ride on a 24” wheel to get a larger travel for suspension. BMX is the bike used in X-GAMES and also is most popular amongst the younger population. At the same time, BMX is the cheapest bikes one can purchase compared to other types of bikes.

http://www.bmxonline.com/bmx/