Types of MTB | Beginner Guide To MTB

Today is the day that I publish the first addition to my new series “The Beginner Guide To MTB”. To start, you need to answer a question. That question is..,

What kind of Mountain Biking do you want to do? Yes, there are lots of MTB disciplines to choose from! 6 to be precise. “What if I wanted to do several disciplines?” That’s a good question. Simply, the answer is yes. But so far as I can tell, you can’t race competitively in several. But you can of course ride them all! To start, choose one that you think you’ll be doing the most, so you can buy the appropriate *kit. Let’s start with the least extreme skills-wise and work our way up.

1. XC (Cross Country). Xc is my personal favorite. Not because it’s “easier”. Xc is typically less “gravity” oriented. Meaning that you’ll be pedaling a lot more, and you won’t be losing 1,000s of feet of elevation at a time. The terrain is often smoother, and more hilly than other disciplines. But that’s not to say that difficult tech isn’t there. It has the most technical climbs you’ll find, and XCers love it that way. We also enjoy long rides that sometimes can stretch up to 100 miles or more for the experienced rider, so we typically have the best endurance out of the bunch! 😉 xc houses the lightest bikes of all. Some bikes without rear suspension weigh as little as 14 pounds. Usually however their around the 20lb mark.

2. Trail. I know, it sounds weird. Trail riding is what I imagine the majority of people enjoy, in fact, I’d go as far as to say I’m mostly xc, but part trail. If I didn’t do XC, I’d do this. You can ride down really long descents (downhill trails), but usually have to pedal to get to the top. They also include much more **features, such as bigger drops, wallrides, and skinnies. Which makes it a good source of adrenaline. That’s why this is more of the “hobby” style discipline. It also prefers longer travel bikes with beefier components on it, so they usually weigh between 20-30lbs.

3. DJ (Dirt Jump). This is what you call an awkward mix of a trail bike and a BMX. As you might have guessed, these bikes are designed for steep dirt jumps and stunts. This is a gravity oriented discipline for sure. In fact, it’s considered rude and sometimes disrespectful to the builder if you pedal on a dirt jump trail, because everything is built so that you don’t have to if you use good technique.

4. Enduro (formerly all-mountain). This is for the hardcore adrenaline junkies who still wanna pedal their bikes occasionally. Enduro bikes are usually pretty heavy and have lots of suspension travel (how much the suspension moves) compared to xc or trail. They often race on trails nearly as steep and technically difficult as DH(6.) plus they have to pedal up 1,000s of feet a day, as they don’t get to use cars to get to the top of the trail during races.

5. Freeride. If you know what this means in the snowboarding world you can probably understand what it means here. It’s part DJ, cuz they do big jumps, but mostly DH, cuz it’s mostly like that but with more jumps. Unlike DJ however, the jumps aren’t very steep. Instead, they are very long, sometimes reaching lengths of over 80’! Their bikes are practically the same as a DH bike, so we’re going to call them just that.

6. DH (Downhill). This is arguably the most intense discipline of them all. World Cup DH races use the gnarliest, and steepest trails on the planet. But you also ride Bike parks with a DH bike, in which case the trails may be smooth, but the turns are taaaallll and the jumps are loooong. This is the discipline for the people who don’t ever want to pedal Aup a hill, only down. Usually, you get on a chair lift or drive to the top. These bikes are the beefiest, heaviest of them all, weighing in at about 30-40lbs! A 40-pound bike! Sheesh🙄.

Before you start looking for for a bike to buy, you need to decide what type of riding you want to be doing the most, and buy the appropriate gear. And that’s exactly what I’ll be covering next time, so tune in next week to learn about Beginner Mountain Bike gear!

*kit. Your kit is what us MTBers (Mountain Bikers) call your bike, bike equipment, and clothes collectively. So if someone tells you that “you have some nice kit!” They mean you look good. Like a proper Mountain Biker. **features are what we call an obstacle or “feature” on the trail. Examples would be jumps, drops, wallrides, rock gardens, skinnies, berms, etc. for an extensive list with pictures, visit this link.