Mountain Bike: Introduction

mountain bike aka mtb

A mountain bike abbreviated Mtn Bike, ATB, or MTB, for all  terrain bike  is a bike specially designed for off road bicycling. Mountain cycles share resemblances with other bicycles, but integrate functions fashioned to improve resilience and performance in rough surfaces. These generally consist of suspension on the shell and frame, big knobby tires, more resilient heavy duty wheels, more powerful brakes, and lower gear ratios desired for steep marks with weak grip.

Mountain bikes are ordinarily ridden on off-road trails, hauling road, fire roads, single tracks and other unpaved settings. These models of land usually include ruts, rubble, reduce sand, washouts, loose gravel, roots, and steep grades. Mountain bicycles are built to manage this surfaces and the hurdles that are identified in it like vertical drop offs, firewood, and smaller boulders.

Since the advancement of the hobby in the 1973s many new subtypes of mountain biking have formulated, for instance cross-country (XC) cycling, freeride bicycling, all-day endurance biking, downhill mountain bicycling, and a variety of track and slalom games. Each of these place different demands on the bike requiring different designs for optimal performance. MTB development has included an increase in suspension, typically up to 8" or 203mm, and gearing, up to 30 speeds, to facilitate both climbing and rapid descents. However, advancements in sprocket design has recently led to the "1x (pronounced one by)" trend, simplifying the gearing to one Chainring/Sprocket in the front and multiple sprockets on the rear of the drive train, more commonly, 9, 10 or 11 .
Designs

Mountain bicycles can be separated into four categories according to suspension configuration:

Hard tail: A bicycle equipped with a suspension fork, and a rigid frame.

    Rigid: A bicycle with neither front nor rear suspension; a hardtail with a rigid fork.

    Dual or full suspension: A bicycle equipped with both front rear suspension. The front suspension is usually handled by a telescopic fork similar to that of a motorcycle, and the rear by a mechanical linkage driving a telescopic shock absorber.
  
    Soft tail: Having neither front nor rear suspension, as with a rigid, the frames and occasionally front forks of these bicycles include some built-in flexibility to absorb small bumps. These designs are much more common in road bikes than mountain bikes.