Anyone can cobble together a definition, but judging by the history of the term and the bikes it covers, a mountain bike proper is something optimized for rough, unpaved terrain at the expense of performance on pavement and at the expense, if need be, of luggage capacity. For me, this means a cockpit different from that of an all rounder (let alone a pavement bike): more upright, wider bar, a bar with straight ends instead of a drop bar (though perhaps a drop bar designed for off road also works -- I've not found them a good compromise between road drops and "straight" bars). A saddle position that lets you stretch off the back for dropoffs. The cockpit also allows braking while shoved off the back of the saddle. Fat tires -- 50 mm being skinny for this purpose. Wide range gearing with a lot of low gears and biased toward range rather than close ratios. Easy to shift shifters (obviously, not down tube, and here is where indexing comes into its own, IMO. Very good brakes, of whatever type, that can accommodate fat tires. A frame with high bb clearance and a certain nimbleness at the front end and a geometry that gives both a very low standover and still allows easy high torque pedaling. A position that lets you move around easily to balance as you move the bike around and across obstacles.
So: tires, cockpit, geometry, gearing, then brakes and bar type. I don't add suspension, since I am not enough used to it to fully appreciate its benefits, but I daresay many would add it as an essential element. Of course there are all sorts of variations on this theme, and you can build anything in between a road bike and a full suspension bike, but a bike that can handle even mildly technical rough stuff is different, at least for me, than a dirt road bike. My Fargo is wonderful on dirt and gravel roads, but it's lousy on singletrack -- leaving skill, or lack of it, aside, it's just not optimized for it, with its narrow drop bar, stretched out position, and close ratio gearing, all of which are wonderful for dirt roads. On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 8:11 AM, ted <ted.ke...@comcast.net> wrote: > Please help me out of my ignorance. What objective characteristics > distinguish a "true" mountain bike from other types of bikes? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- *RESUMES THAT GET YOU NOTICED!* Certified Resume Writer http://resumespecialties.com/index.html patrickmo...@resumespecialties.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickmooreresumespec/ Albuquerque, NM -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
