The surprising story of how I got into mountain biking

Spring 2020: I’m very bored and my mom suggests that I go biking with a friend, I end up going every day for a week on some gravel paths and greatly enjoying it, then a few weeks later me and my friend started building trails at our elementary school and going to the local trails still going almost every day. Around this time is when i started looking into mountain biking YouTube, from tutorials to povs I watched hours of mountain biking content every day and learned lots about the sport. During the summer I did a bike camp I was still very much a beginner at the sport but the camp was super fun so the following years I also did a bike camp often with my friends. Today I’ve mountain biked at whistler, Chilliwack, fromme, Seymour, inter river, loutet, Burnaby bike park, and Squamish, mountain biking is now my main sport and I’ve also gotten much braver even with things other than mountain biking although I’m still cautious for a mountain biker. So now I’ve learned the life lesson of listen to your mom.

 

 

How to get started with mountain biking

Mountain biking is an amazing sport to learn, and in this blog I will be talking about how you can learn to get started on mountain biking in a step by step format.

Step 1: learn to bike

In this step you will need to learn to bike. If you already know how to bike you can skip this step and go to step two. If you do not know how to bike this is the step you will start on. First get a bike, if you are on a budget I recommend paying for a rental lime bike, this way you can learn to bike for under $10. To learn to bike I recommend watching a tutorial or getting a friend to help you. But if you can’t access that then here’s a quick summary: sit on the seat, grip the handle bars and put your feet on the pedals, then pedal forwards slowly and keep the handle bars straight. If you follow all those steps you should be able to ride a bike!

Step 2: buying gear

This step is super important because if you over invest and you don’t like mountain biking you’ll have of wasted thousands of dollars and if you under invest mountain biking may not be fun because you’ll always be fixing your bike. You probably want to buy and mountain bike in the range of $300 to $800, new or used and want a $20 to $60 helmet. Once your officially broke you’ll be ready for the next step!

Step 3: where and what to ride

This step is only useful if you live on the north shore, if you live somewhere else ask someone at a bike shop. I’ll put the two beginner mountains in separate lists. (fromme and Seymour do not ride cypress as a beginner) Seymour: empress bypass, high school league, and john deer. (after some practice) fromme: roadside attraction, bobsled, griffin, and king of the shore.

Step 4: how to talk

To not look like a total beginner you need to learn a few mountain bike words

Tech: type of trail with rocks, roots, skinnys (skinny pieces) and is generally a little slow

Flow: type of trail that is smooth, has rollers (small mounds), jumps and drops (looks like this:

Sketch: close to crashing

Bail: crash

Wood roll: wooded bridge downhill

Rock roll: big rock down hill

Rock garden: bunch of smaller rocks put together to make a rideable surface

Whip: tweak bike in air

T bog: one hand on seat

Super man: feet off

Nac nac: foot behind back wheel

Suicide no hander: hands off

Tuck no hander: bars tucked into chest and no hands

Table: tilt bike 90 degrees

Manual: one wheel off ground

Wheelie: one wheel off ground while pedalling

Wallride: like riding on wall but sometimes not fully straight up

X up: turn bars 180 degrees

Barspin: turn bars 360 degrees

Tail whip: turn bike 360 degrees while rider doesn’t spin

On off box: jump on then off

Lip: take off

Endo back wheel in air

Step 5: learn about mountain biking:

In this step you watch videos about mountain biking. (or read magazines) in this step you will spend hours researching mountain biking and learning about it. This step is one of the most important because you can learn about different parts of the sport and which one you like the most you can also watch tutorials to learn to fix your bike.

 

 

The surprising story of how I got into mountain biking

Spring 2020: I’m very bored and my mom suggests that I go biking with a friend, I end up going every day for a week on some gravel paths and greatly enjoying it, then a few weeks later me and my friend started building trails at our elementary school and going to the local trails still going almost every day. Around this time is when i started looking into mountain biking YouTube, from tutorials to povs I watched hours of mountain biking content every day and learned lots about the sport. During the summer I did a bike camp I was still very much a beginner at the sport but the camp was super fun so the following years I also did a bike camp often with my friends. Today I’ve mountain biked at whistler, Chilliwack, fromme, Seymour, inter river, loutet, Burnaby bike park, and Squamish, mountain biking is now my main sport and I’ve also gotten much braver even with things other than mountain biking although I’m still cautious for a mountain biker. So now I’ve learned the life lesson of listen to your mom.