Mountain biking is a great way to get out of the house and into the fresh air of the outdoors, but knowing how to get started is something that you should know at least a little bit about before you dive right in. However, even if you are a beginner who has already started mountain biking some, you may find something here that you may not have thought of yet.
The First Two Steps
When you are getting into mountain biking then the first step should be to decide what kind of mountain biking that you want to do. That is right, before you pick and get yourself a mountain bike you should first think about what kind of trails that you intend on exploring.
This is because some branches of mountain bike have different features in the bikes that are for them. Therefore, getting a bike that is for downhill mountain biking will not work quite so well for you if the trails that you will be on are more all mountain style.
The first and most common kind of trail is either referred to as cross country trails or simply as mountain biking trails sometimes. These trails are found all over the place and they are a great way to start off mountain biking.
Cross country trails come in all different lengths from less than a mile to a few that are around a hundred miles and that are made for a long weekend trip that lasts more than one day. They are almost always marked according to their difficulty level so that you can pick which ones you should be able to do without any problems.
The next trail type is either called all-mountain or enduro mountain biking. These are like the cross country trails, only these ones have a lot more technical features, tougher climbs, and descents that can be quite scary for beginners.
The term enduro is actually a racing term for a type of trail that has a certain amount of steep uphill sections and a certain amount of equally steep downhill. This being the case, if you are beginner then you should probably not start here, but you can get an enduro bike to start with if you know that you will want to work your way up to this.
The next type of trail is downhill mountain biking trails. Like you might guess from their name, these trails are all about going downhill, usually as fast as possible. Most downhill trails are used in the winter as ski trails and then when the snow melts they are used for downhill mountain biking.
If you don’t like climbing hills for whatever reason then this is a good option since most of the time the ski lifts are still working and you can ride one of these to the top of the trails, bike down, and then repeat as you want to.
However, riding up the lifts will be something that you will have to pay for, so if you are on a budget then you will want to keep this in mind. Even though you are going downhill the while time, this type of riding is prone to accidents, since there are lots of obstacles sometimes that you have to react to.
In most cases trails all have the same markings that show what difficulty they are, with a green circle meaning it is a beginner trail, a blue diamond meaning intermediate, and a black diamond meaning expert or difficult. This being the case, if you are a beginner mountain biker than you should stick with the beginner trails at first.
Once you have decided what kind of trails you will be riding on, it is now time to pick your mountain bike. Mountain bikes are quite different than road bikes and have fatter tires most of the time, are more durable, are more likely to have suspensions for comfort, and let you ride in a more upright position so that you can look around better.
There are specific bikes for both the enduro trails and for downhill mountain biking which you can choose from. Perhaps something that is even more important for you is to get a mountain bike that is the right size for you and that you will feel comfortable riding.
Starting Out
Once you have your mountain bike and know what type of mountain biking that you are the most interested in, the next step is to find trails near you that you can ride. There are a number of websites and apps that you can look at in order to find trails near you, many of these also include maps of the trails that you can print out so that you can plan your route so that you do not get lost.
While you are at it you should also look up any mountain biking clubs in your area. No matter where you live there is almost sure to be one of these clubs. If you have a hard time finding one then you can ask around at local bike shops and anyone you meet on the trails.
It is very important that you do this for a number of different reasons. One is the fact that it is a great idea to go on rides with a club of people, that way if you get a flat or something on your bike and have no idea what to do about it you have someone right there who is usually more than willing to help you out and to teach you what you are doing.
Being a part of a club can also be a good way to meet other mountain bikers and to even ride along with each other sometimes, thereby cutting back on your gas expenses as well as theirs. Finally, the last advantage that I will mention is that you are going to be bound to have a lot of questions as a beginner, and being a part of a club is a great way to meet people who are likely to know the answers to these questions.
Final Tips
Another thing that you want to do besides joining a club is to make sure that you find out about and attend any local mountain biking events. Sometimes these are races, but even these can often have a number of booths and workshops that you can look at.
Oftentimes these are specifically geared towards teaching mountain bikers who are still fairly new to the world of mountain biking more on various topics. These are free most of the time, and the abundance of mountain bikers that attend these events make it a great place to ask any and every question that you might have if you don’t want to ask those in your club.
Sometimes bike shops will also have classes, sometimes free ones and other ones that you have to pay to attend, and these classes are a great way to learn things like how to take care of your mountain bike.
Finally, the last thing that you should really do if you are starting out mountain biking is to keep track of your progress and to log everything down. This way you will not only be able to be encouraged by seeing your progress, but you will also get to see how much riding you have done.
This is also a great way to see if you can beat your own record of how fast you did a trail, and maybe you can find someone else in your club who is a beginner as well and you can both keep count of how many miles you both ride by the end of the year.
There is all sorts of information online on how you can do this, and other thing that you can do online is to watch videos to help you learn how to do new skills on your mountain bike which you can also log in your mountain biking diary so that you can see all that you have achieved in a year.