Oh, How Things Have Changed

I sat down in front of the TV the other night and threw a tape in the VCR. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google it; I’ll wait…

I’m sure your first question after “How did you people live with those things?” is “Why do you still have one of those?” Fair questions, actually. I still have a VCR because I accumulated a collection of mountain bike movies from "the dark ages" with titles like Chainsmoke, Ride to the Hills, and the quintessential early MTB film Tread (The Movie) that I feel the need to revisit from time to time.

Tread was the first full-length mountain bike movie to be shown in theaters. This would have been the mid-nineties, a time before the rise of YouTube. Yes, there was actually a time before videos were easily found on demand. Look it up; I'll wait...

Tread starred mountain bike icons Greg Herbold and Hans Rey on a road trip to ride sweet singletrack. It’s a simple enough concept, but the artistic, quality filmmaking and the endearing personalities of Greg and Hans struck a chord with riders as well as filmmakers, and a genre was born. Tread launched many a ride. Once we were able to obtain the coveted VHS tape, we nearly wore it out getting our stoke the night before a ride!

Looking back at these old films is looking at history. The sport of mountain biking has progressed and developed so much in that time span. Take a bike from the nineties and a modern bike and set them side by side; the difference is astounding. No doubt they share many similarities, but if you look closely, you can see how time has marched on. The geometry of the frame now is designed to be confident in varying terrains. Older bikes had a tendency to want to endo if you weren’t on your toes when tackling rocky and/or steep trails. Although new designs are not fool proof, the sickening sensation of the back wheel lifting off the ground trying to pass the front wheel is only felt when you mess up really bad! Bikes today have a very desirable trait: forgiveness. If you make a small mistake, the bike has got you. Older bikes tended to punish you for making a mistake.

Don’t look it up now... I’m almost done, but there’s a video of an amateur downhill race in Austria in 1992 that features a stairway the riders had to ride down. Keep in mind, it was a very shallow stairway and only about twenty steps long, but a lot of riders were hitting the deck trying to make it down. I have no doubt that if I was able to take the entry-level mountain bike from Bicycles Unlimited (a Trek Marlin 5) to that very staircase, I could ride down it at a pretty good clip without a worry of crashing.

Wider bars and bigger wheels are the norm now (turns out that leverage thing actually works). Better shocks and suspension design not only help in the rough going downhill, they actually help while climbing chunky stuff as well—something unheard of in the nineties. There used to be much debate about whether or not full suspension was wasting energy. Now, it saves energy.

Modern mountain bikes are amazing machines. They’re faster while being less twitchy, more planted, more comfortable, and plain impressive. The old days were just as fun, but the present-day rides are less likely to end with you having less skin than when you started!

Wow. All this talk of bikes and riding just made me drool a little. How about we watch Tread and head out for a ride!

About the Author

Mountain bike veteran, amateur filmmaker, and lover of long rides, Jay Bartlett has been riding trails in southern Utah for over thirty years. Jay has over a decade of experience as a bike mechanic at St. George's oldest bike shop, Bicycles Unlimited.