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What got you into biking?

Al C. Oholic

Monkey
Feb 11, 2010
407
0
FoCo
I was only about 11, one of my best friends got into it and started racing. I wanted him to think I was cool so I started doin some XC too. I realized it was a blast, especially after I discovered DJ and later DH. Now I wouldn't know what to do without it.
 

SDH Racing

Monkey
Apr 5, 2006
341
0
NE
Friends/Hans Rey video's. When I first saw him doing crazy trials moves on his mod and GT Zaskar bikes I was blown away and would be outside for hours trying to do what I'd see in his video's. Then years down the road I come to find out my friends that I rode with when I was younger also rode with Aaron Chase as he lived in the next town over up in Belmont, NH. Obviously he took it to the next level and thats what kept me inspired to keep riding and working on becoming better.




 

JRogers

talks too much
Mar 19, 2002
3,785
1
Claremont, CA
I used to go on bike rides with my family either around town or when we were on vacation in different places. After that it was really just a gradual progression. Rode with my friends in the woods, not even really know what mountain biking was. Then I started getting more and more into it and got a decent bike (Schwinn Moab). Started working at a shop around 16, got a better bike. Since then (10 years later) I've just gotten more into road, DH and other types of riding.
 

Heidi

Der hund ist laut und braun
Aug 22, 2001
10,184
797
Bend, Oregon
Blew out my knee from long distance running and was told to take up biking. The next year I was racing mountain bikes!
 

Repack Rider

Monkey
Oct 8, 2007
183
66
Marin County, California
It was 1970, and the alternative was walking. I was 24 years old when I first rode a 10-speed, a battered Schwinn Varsity that I rescued out of a friend's basement after my car died. It turned out that even on a cheap bike I rode faster than everyone else I saw, which in 1970 wasn't too many people.

Within two years I was on a Colnago and a few years after that my best friend and I opened a bike shop.
 

mantispf2000

Turbo Monkey
Aug 9, 2001
1,793
243
Nevada, 2 hours from Mammoth
Moved to WA State, only wanted to have one car for then-wife, so I got a Specialized Rockhopper for commuting. It expanded from there........................

(Too tired to expand on this comment, so fill in whatever blanks you want to, it's open season)
 

psychodad

Chimp
Jun 24, 2008
46
0
New York
None of friends or girlfriends ever wanted anything to do with any sort of exercise. I had wanted an mtb for years, but had nothing to push me into spending the $$ that I didn't have anyways. I rode a Murray 626 for fun :( Finally when I went to SUNY Buffalo I got a girlfriend who wanted to go mtb'ing. I went out and bought myself a new Trek 970. So my girlfriend went out later and bought the same the same bike and same helmet. I hated her for that. We looked like preppy poser Jack n Jill douchebags when we rode together. (She dumped me a few years later as soon as she found a rich toad.)
But she did get me into mtb'ing, so that was a good thing.
 

MikeD

Leader and Demogogue of the Ridemonkey Satinists
Oct 26, 2001
11,669
1,713
chez moi
Always rode a bike as a kid, and riding a few towns over on the GT Pro Performance to to buy a coke from a different drugstore, throw rocks into a different pond, or just bum around was a way to feel out from under the thumb.

"Mountain bikes" showed up big-time as I edged towards my teens, but no one I knew rode one off-road; they were just these complicated-looking bikes with too many gears. Then when my brother was headed to college, he got a Schwinn High Plains Aluminum(!) and put some of those Scott MTB time-trial-looking bars on it. And I ended up getting a Schwinn Sierra MOS when I was a sophomore in high school. Rode all over creation on it, as I never had a car until I graduated college. Couldn't keep the gears from skipping and didn't know where to learn to tune them, so I just sawed off the first-gen Rapidfires and put on friction shifters (the old Iron Horse catalog insisted they were better b/c you could trim them on the fly, so I figured they HAD to be superior). Might've been the only cable change the bike ever saw, and it had the same rusty chain until the day I got rid of it.

Rode on a dirt trail/path network with my brother when he was home from college, but it never seemed like I was supposed to be doing it. Then, when I visited him in CA once, we took his friends' bikes to a local park, all singletrack, and I rode on clipless pedals with my running shoes, and about 3 working gears. And it was mesmerizingly awesome. Didn't know you could ride like that on a mountain bike. When I moved out to CA in 1999, I bought the extravagant Trek 6000 which had that "dunno if I need that" suspension fork up front, and started riding in earnest.

Then I discovered mtbr, then Ridemonkey. And I rode every day, all the time out in the CA desert. Then I went to Big Bear to ride and saw all these fat guys in armor on a chairlift and laughed, until next season when I had my Big Hit and North-Shore Approved Core Rat duds and Bell Bellistic. And I was bad-ass enough to be voted one of the year's worst-dressed bikers by VORB.org, which ultimately led me to spend a few months in NZ riding. Now here I am in Africa, still hopping on a bike occasionally.
 
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boostindoubles

Nacho Libre
Mar 16, 2004
7,839
6,145
Yakistan
when I was a kid, all my friends lived in town and were skaters. I lived out in the country and had no where to practice skateboarding, except on the 55 mph country roads. I would go into town and hang with them and slam into the ground all the time. I switched to bmx because I could still tool around with my friends and while they skated.

Then one night some random kid in a parking lot showed me how to bunnyhop my mongoose. That was 15 years ago and I've been riding and jumping every and any bike I can get my hands on.
 

NovatoSCFR

Monkey
Aug 27, 2004
214
0
NOVATO CA
I think the summer before freshman year of high school, I was checking out video games at blockbuster. Came upon Downhill Domination and thought "Hey, that looks pretty fun." Rented it, played the snot out of it for a week, and realized that actual mountain biking would probably be pretty fun. Got a bike, found my freedom, and haven't looked back. Now I go to school in Vancouver, although I do get distracted by ski season. This will be my first summer spent here though, so I'm looking forward to exploring more of what BC's got to offer.
 

north20

Chimp
Nov 5, 2007
85
0
East Cascades - PNW
Climbing, skiing, and kayaking in my late teens ... Took a fall while bouldering in 1980 and split my kneecap. Therapist had me riding a bike as much as possible and got hooked.

Fast forward a couple of years and I was working for the USFS in a pretty remote area. Lots of dirt roads, and so I rarely took my Specialized Expedition (sweet touring bike of that era) out on pavement after discovering how much better dirt was.

Mountain bikes were just a natural progression ;)
 

kickstand

Turbo Monkey
Sep 18, 2009
3,441
392
Fenton, MI
Dad taught me to ride when I was 5, built me a jump for the driveway outta plywood. Got me a schwinn predator for my 6th birthday, and did the same for all of my brothers. Bought us all a schwinn sidewinder for our 12th birthday, I rode the wheels off the sidewinder, still have the predator (it was the 1986 banana yellow with blue tires model that kicks ass!!) unfortunately I cracked the frame on that sometime around 1998. Bought a trek 4900 when I was in college, and have been hooked every since.

We grew up on our bikes,we lived in the country and had dirt jumps all over the place, thats all we did every day was fish and jump our bikes....
 

Leppah

Turbo Monkey
Mar 12, 2008
2,294
3
Utar
Was a skater from 6th grade through 10th. Broke my arm twice, bad. DIdn't do anything active through high school after that. I was bored all the time after graduating since my friends just liked to sit around all the time. Went out and bought a Haro hardtail in 96, and started finding friends to ride XC with. Never stopped since then.
 

kazlx

Patches O'Houlihan
Aug 7, 2006
6,985
1,957
Tustin, CA
Rode a BMX bike all over as a kid. It was my transportation to school up until I got a car in high school. Once I got a car, that was pretty much my only hobby. In 05, I happened to pick up a mountain bike magazine out of curiousity and was amazed at all the new technology they had for mountain bikes. The stuff was unreal compared to what I remembered as mountain bikes from being a kid. I watched some videos and decided to get a bike. I went and picked up a brand new 05 Kona Coiler and just started riding it. I did what I'm sure a lot of new guys do and ended up spending more than I planned. I was hoping to spend $500 or less, until I realized that most bikes at that range are crap (for full suspension anyway). I found out that low end suspension products aren't really designed for people over 200lbs. I ended up getting a great deal on the 05 Coiler though and rode the crap out of it, turning it more into a DH feeling bike with every upgrade.
 

TN

Hey baby, want a hot dog?
Jul 9, 2002
14,301
1,353
Jimtown, CO
I rode had beat up old fuji while in college & rode some local trails with some guys in college then put the bike up for a bit. Then, after a period of doing lots of drugs & living like I didnt want to live, I dug the ol' fuji out & started riding trails. I upgraded from there (trails & bikes). besides skiing riding mtbs is the most fun I have ever had.
never looked back since.