Mountain bike
A
mountain bike or
mountain bicycle is a bicycle created for off-road cycling. Mountain bikes are typically ridden on mountain trails, fire roads, logging roads, and other unpaved environments. These types of terrain commonly include rocks, washouts, ruts, loose sand, loose gravel, roots, and steep grades. Mountain bikes are built to handle this terrain and the obstacles that are found in it like logs, vertical drop offs, and smaller boulders. Mountain bike construction differs from a typical bicycle in many ways. The most noticeable differences are the inclusion of suspension on the frame and fork, larger knobby tires, more durable heavy duty wheels, more powerful brakes, and lower gear ratios needed for steep grades with poor traction. Since the development of the sport in the 1970s many new subtypes of mountain biking have developed, such as cross-country biking, all-day endurance biking, Freeride-biking, downhill mountain biking, and a variety of track and slalom competitions. Each of these place different demands on the bike requiring different designs for optimal performance.