Behind Bars

By Mike Davis

A collection of 14 articles by mountain bike journalist Mike Davis, all originally published in influential MTB magazine Privateer between 2009 and 2013. Includes a history of titanium mountain bikes, a look at the unique devotion that Yeti owners have to their bikes, the experience of racing a twenty year old bike on 10 year old trails, how watching skilled riders taps into the oldest parts of the human brain and plenty more. The articles include interviews with numerous influential bike designers, builders and riders -- Greg Herbold, John Tomac, Keith Bontrager, Mike Augspurger, Rob Vandermark, Jeff Jones and many more.

There's a lot of depth here, but the author's breezy style is easy to read. Anyone who's interested in the development of mountain bikes and mountain biking will enjoy this book.

Table of Contents

Preface

Old Medallists
Inside the 2010 Old World Mountain Bike Championships.

Elements of Style
It's not just what you ride, it's how you ride.

Faster, Higher, Stronger?
Is being an Olympic sport really a good thing?

Tribalism
There's brand loyalty, and then there's the Yeti Tribe.

Striking a Balance
Santa Cruz Bicycles treads the fine line between niche and mainstream.

Daily Riders and Garage Queens
The slightly obsessive world of retro mountain bikes.

The Pink Dashed Line
The surprising importance to British mountain biking of an office in Southampton.

Fork Wars
In the red corner: Herbold and RockShox. In the blue corner: Tomac and Manitou.

A Brief History of Ti
From fighter jet hydraulics to high-end bike frames.

Better by Degrees
MTB geometry explained, at some length (also includes angles).

What Goes Around
Now you understand geometry a little better, here's how it's changed. Or, as it turns out, not.

Positive Spin
Wheelbuilding's not really a dark art, but it's still very clever.

Custom
The renaissance of custom framebuilding.

Burst Your Bubble
Mountain biking's full of niches, but you don't have to stay in them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Davis
• Release date: Feb 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311527202

Mike Davis

Mike Davis (1946–2022) was the author of City of Quartz as well as Dead Cities and The Monster at Our Door, co-editor of Evil Paradises, and co-editor—with Kelly Mayhew and Jim Miller—of Under the Perfect Sun (The New Press).

Book preview

Behind Bars

Mike Davis

Published by Oolite Media Limited at Smashwords

Copyright © 2009-2013 Mike Davis

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Preface

Old Medallists

Elements of Style

Faster, Higher, Stronger

Tribalism

Striking a Balance

Daily Riders and Garage Queens

The Pink Dashed Line

Fork Wars

A Brief History of Ti

Better by Degrees

What Goes Around

Positive Spin

Custom

Burst Your Bubble

Preface

I've been writing about bicycles for (something resembling) a living for 17 years. Not surprisingly, I've produced quite a lot in that time. For the bulk of my career I've been on the staff of various magazines and websites, which means that I don't actually own most of what I've written. More recently I've been freelance, gradually building up work that I retain the copyright to. A lot of it – bike tests, route guides and the like – doesn't particularly bear repetition. Some of it, however, does, and it's that stuff you'll find in this compilation.

It's no coincidence that the 14 articles herein were all originally published in Privateer. I was heavily involved in the launch of Privateer in 2009, and remained a regular contributor after my day-to-day involvement came to an end a few issues in. Each issue of Privateer was a door-stopping (and legendarily fragrant) tome, characterised by long, in-depth, intelligent articles that gave it a measured feel next to the rapid-fire assault of most mainstream magazines.

Alas, despite an enthusiastic following, the 18th issue of Privateer was the last. Most magazines close with little notice, but Privateer got the opportunity to put together a valedictory issue. It was a fitting conclusion to a brave publishing experiment.

The articles included here sometimes differ slightly from those originally published – I've used my original text, although hopefully with all the original typos and errors corrected. Occasionally I've shuffled things around and changed parts of the text so that it works in the context of a book.

The main change is to the order. Rather than being presented in chronological order, they're in an order that – to me at least – gives a pleasing pace and flow to the book. Pace and flow is important, in reading as in riding.

Mike Davis, Dorset, October 2013

Old Medallists

The early 1990s were boom time for mountain bikes and the racing thereof. The sport has been diversifying ever since, and there are those that feel it's lost its way a bit. The Old World Mountain Bike Championships was an attempt to revive the spirit of a simpler age.

A forest in Wales. A diminutive Lycra-clad Frenchman pedals a rigid steel bike briskly alongside a lake. Suddenly from behind him there's a shout: Allez allez! Vive le France! Vive le croissants! These are not the words of a Frenchman – they're delivered in a distinctive Welsh accent. The owner of the accent barrels into view, stretched out over the impossibly long cockpit of his titanium e-stay, a breed that, much like dinosaurs, are fondly thought of but rarely seen in the wild. With a whirr of XTR, a crunch of tyres and a mild creak of bottom bracket, he's past and gone.

A playing field in Wales (specifically, Betws y Coed), the previous day. A couple of EZ-Ups form the loci about which a loose gathering of bicycles is assembled, none of them less than 15 years old and many of distractingly lurid hues. The bikes carry names perhaps unfamiliar to the contemporary mountain biker – Alpinestars, Mountain Goat, Tushingham, MS Racing. Some are more familiar, like Orange, Cannondale and Pace, but the bikes behind the decals are largely bereft of innovations like disc brakes, effective suspension or tyres wider than 2in.

This is the gathering point for the 2010 Old World Mountain Bike Championships, an event for which only bikes made before 1995 are eligible. That it's taking place exactly 20 years after the first UCI mountain bike World Championship would seem like a carefully-constructed conceit, were it not for the fact that this is actually the second OWMTBC – the inaugural event took place in 2009 (in the retro hotbed of the Netherlands), twenty years after the year that both the US and Europe hosted their own, entirely unconnected, World Championships.

OWMTBC is the brainchild of UK retro enthusiasts Neil Ruddock and Ed Edwards, two men who clearly have a knack of making things happen even if you're never quite sure what those things are.

It all came about in a discussion in a pub, explains Edwards. About how it'd be really good to put on something to get the flavour of the old events. There're loads of events where you can just go away and race, turn up, race, go home. We wanted something where you can turn up, have a really good time socially, and during that there's some sort of race or timed ride, but that's not the focus of the whole thing.

Taking up mountain biking in the early 90s, my introduction to it was the Fun and Sports class, recalls Ruddock, Riding the NEMBA races where there was a real spirit at the back of the field, and that's definitely in the DNA of this thing.

One of the many endearing things about the OWMTBC is that everyone involved manages to take it reasonably seriously where it matters but without ever losing sight of the fact that the whole enterprise is another level of slightly geeky daftness beyond the already geeky daftness that is riding bicycles in the dirt for fun.

Take, for example, the scrutineering, in which bikes were assessed for vital retro characteristics like the presence of thumbshifters, skinwall tyres or colourful anodised parts. Heading up the scrutineers was Melvin Wals from the Netherlands, owner of both an extensive collection of classic bikes and a sense of humour as dry as the Atacama.

Retro enthusiasts have something of a reputation in the wider world for a pedantic obsession with detail, a reputation that Melvin mercilessly exploited with incisive criticism of minor transgressions of component contemporaneity or sub-standard assembly. Is this acceptable? quickly became one of the weekend's catchphrases. No-one managed to produce the demanded certificate of authenticity, while I was stumped by a request for proof that the paint on my 1991 Cannondale was original.

A function room in a hotel in Wales. The walls are lined with bikes, jerseys and kit from another era. One of them is a BMBF/7-Up National Champion jersey, awarded to Tim Davies in 1989. Tim, known ever since as the Flying Welshman, is guest of honour at OWMTBC. He won his title on an Orange, but spent most of his subsequent career riding for Alpinestars. These days he runs a leisure centre and gets most of his riding miles in on the road, but at the invitation of the organisers he dragged his Alpinestars Ti-Mega (complete with 160mm zero-rise stem and 21in flat bars) out of the garage where it had been resting for the previous 18 years and brought his whole family to Betws y Coed.

The format of the evening is simple. There's a pub quiz on the theme of old bikes and riders, ideally to be answered without reference to the stacks of old magazines on nearly every surface. The quiz is compiled and compered by John Vallins, founder of top old-bicycle web site Retrobike.co.uk. In a move that might be considered to be getting too close to the story, I win it.

Next up was Alpinestars collector Mark Sinnett, who took to the floor with a potted history of MS Racing and Alpinestars that led neatly to a hugely entertaining Q&A with Tim Davies. The room was treated to a twin-pronged answer to nearly every question, with Tim's dad – his main supporter during his racing career – giving an alternative perspective. Tim's children are fascinated by the whole thing, clearly never having thought of their dad as a celebrity before.

The playing field again, the following morning. The sun is out and the competitors are ready to race, mildly sore heads permitting. But just as the 90s NEMBA races in the North of England, this isn't just going to be a race. It's a multi-disciplinary weekend, and one of the sub-events is only tangentially related to old mountain bikes. Harking back to the observed trials element of the early races, the OWMTBC variant attempts to test riders' bike handling and balance through the medium of a Raleigh Twenty shopper and a large selection of plastic play food.

Riders were teamed into pairs, with the first having to navigate the small-wheeled bike around the course collecting food into the fore and aft baskets and the second having to repeat the course while replacing the same food atop the wheelie bins from whence it came. That all this took place immediately adjacent to Betws-y-Coed's weekend football matches only added to the slight air of unreality. But with much squealing of brakes, clicking of Sturmey Archer, dropping of food and only minor loss of dignity, the challenge was undertaken.

Some lunch, a short rider briefing and a points-scoring hill climb later, it's time for the main event. Riders, setting off in pairs, will take on marked sections of the Marin trail in Gwydyr Forest against the clock. In a reversal of the usual bike-riding scenario, the trail is considerably newer than any of the bikes.

Rocky singletrack in a forest. I'm helming a 19 year old mountain bike down purpose-built trails. It's a very different experience to doing the same thing on a modern trail bike. The only suspension here is give in the tyres and a bit of twang from the slender, tapered, curved chromoly fork blades. Each of the seven sprockets at the back seems quite a long way from the next, yet the very lowest gear available in the granny ring is about the same as you'd get in the middle ring today.

The bike has a fairly upright riding position by 1991 standards, but the cockpit is still long, low and narrow compared to modern bikes. Combine the head-down stance with the unyielding frame and fork and you end up with something that loves to climb but demands a bit of relearning on descents. Especially bumpy ones. It's probably a blessing that the bike's layout and rigidity tends to limit downhill speed, because the cantilever brakes aren't exactly the last word in power.

What's impressive, though, is that it works. It's a 1991 bike with well-used 1991 parts. Transmission, hubs, brakes are all original. This bike would have cost about £700 in 1991, placing it in the upper bit of the mid-range. I bought it a few weeks previously for £40, gave it a wash and a bit of grease (and a new headset and BB) and here it is, as good as ever. These trails weren't built with a bike like this in mind and, yes, it's not hard to find its limitations. But this is a whole lot of fun for the price of a tyre.

Not all competitors have taken such a low-budget approach. It's been a long time since, for example, three Alpinestars Ti-Megas have been seen in the same place at the same time. Immaculate Mountain Goats, restored Paces and other high-end classics abound (although not a single Klein, for some reason). One particularly colourful character, Jeroen from the Netherlands, has brought an entire vanload of rarities that represent but a small fraction of his collection.

Regardless of the provenance of the bikes, they're all being ridden, though, and often ridden hard, giving the lie to the idea that the retro scene is all about scouring eBay and polishing things. It doesn't matter how rare or shiny it is, or how hard it would be to replace a worn chainring. The challenge of cleaning amberwall tyres holds no fear for these riders. It's old bikes being used as they were meant to be used.

As well as the real rarities, there's also a lot of the kind of fairly mainstream stuff that British teenagers in the early 90s were saving paper round money for, a reflection of the fact that most of the people here were British teenagers in the early 90s. The most visible brand is Orange, mostly because Dave and Ben from Orange are here with a small collection of interesting bikes gathered from dusty corners of Orange HQ. It's a small but valuable bit of industry support that nearly led to something a lot bigger.

I had a chat with Michael Bonney from Orange back in March, says Neil Ruddock. He'd heard of the event from last year and was interested, but it's the same time as [major trade show] Eurobike so he couldn't come. But he said that the idea was so strong that we could get 200 riders at the event, and he'd bring well-known faces. We chatted about it for a good hour and a half, and it was plausible. But we talked about it amongst ourselves and decided that that wasn't us, that we weren't really event organisers in that 'mass market' way. 200 people would have been an amazing challenge. In some ways we might have been disappointed at the number of people who made it, but on the other hand we're delighted because we wouldn't have been able to cope with more than 40 people.

I like it actually, having a smaller event, agrees Ed Edwards. It becomes really personal, you can get around and chat to everyone. And that's important, the chatting about it. Not just a nice corporate event where you go away and I don't remember who that was.

After an afternoon of charging around Gwydyr Forest and fixing pinch flats, it was time to reconvene back in Betws y Coed to compare notes and arm pump. Everyone had post-ride buzz in spades, not least Tim Davies, who hadn't ridden his old race bike since 1992.

I had a great time, says Tim. It didn't take long to become familiar again with my old bike and I went through a range of emotions whilst riding it. I'm not over familiar with the latest generation of full sussers so riding the bike after 18 years wasn't too much of a shock. The riding position despite the long stem was no problem as I do a lot of road riding. The brakes were a lot better than I expected. The front mech rubbed on the back tyre in the small ring, but it always did back in the day. Bottom bracket creaked a bit, but it usually did back in the day... The forks, despite being good in their day, aren't a patch on modern forks so picking smooth lines was important.

There was a final, fitting nod to the fledgling events of mountain biking's past. In the UK in the 80s, MTB races were somewhat informal affairs, even if they bore grand titles like, say, National Championships. One notable event saw the National Champion for the year crowned after