History of Mountain Bikes

melon92

Hi guys,

I'm currently doing a Higher Apprenticeship with a certain aerospace engineering company in Derby. As part of my apprenticeship, I am currently studying for a Foundation Degree in Integrated Engineering which involves an investigative project of our choice that involves engineering.
The obvious choice for me was something related to mountain bikes as i feel i have chain lube instead of blood! Due to the level of the course, My lecturers aren't going to take a brief couple of pages job, so i have TONS of research to do!!

This is where you guys come in.

Do any of you know any Books, Magazines, Articles e.t.c that could help me with my research? with it being engineering, I am looking to go into the technical side of the sport too, such as the different manufacturing processes, improvements of the sport, testing, force calculations and maintenance.

Please feel free to reply or PM me ASAP please!

Thanks in advance,

Simon Bellamy

Anonymous

The Mountain Bike Skills Manual - Clive Forth

Has chapters at the beginning on the history of MTB and evolution of the bikes and components which I found quite interesting.

The skills stuff is pretty good too.

Found it in Waterstones.

delcol

watch clunkers on dvd that will give you a good insight into the history of mtb..

this video is pretty cool (the 2nd one) from an engineering prospective..

they redesign a bike product to get rid of the flaws.. it pretty good...
http://www.pinkbike.com/news/R2-Reality-Redesigned.html

switchback18

I would think Sheldon Brown http://www.sheldonbrown.com/ would have some useful knowledge. It's all cycling not just MTB. Take a look, I don't use it much myself as I know what I need to know for MTB stuff, but people often refer forum users to the site. A lot of it will be maintenance rather than engineering, but I reckon there may well be some useful info in there.

At a tangent, you might want to Google 'pass storming' as an alternative British start to off road riding... Not MTB's but well worth a look!

Northwind

There's some interesting stuff on the internet from Cy Turner from Cotic, on material usage etc, from a lecture he presented... Feels rather basic to me but could be of use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxuT8W9cmPs

NatoED

don't forget to look up geoff Apps as he's the daddy of UK MTBing ( he did start using 29ers in the early 70's ) as well as having great ideas for pedals and spoke cutting designs.

Atz

As delcol said, go watch Klunkerz (he spelled it wrong). Charlie is around on STW and will answer emails if you want to talk to him.

cooldad

Also on Retrobike, and posts up some interesting stuff.

bluechair84

Not too long ago Radio 4 had a series of programmes on the history of the bike which detailed everything from how chains became used, to the first gear hubs. It made for very interesting listening on my way home from work. Finding it however could be an adventure.

delcol

Atz wrote:

As delcol said, go watch Klunkerz (he spelled it wrong). Charlie is around on STW and will answer emails if you want to talk to him.

:oops: :oops: :oops: thanks... story of my life was never good at that spelling lark...

t4tomo

you could do worse than google Gary Fisher

dot1

Get a book called It's all about the bike by Robert Penn. Details the history of the bike and how it came about, plus its a great story of how he got a frame built from scratch and hand picked all the components and saw them manufactured and things. Infact, everyone should just buy it anyway!

benpinnick

t4tomo wrote:

you could do worse than google Gary Fisher

+ Joe Breeze + Tom RItchey.

moggy82

deadkenny wrote:

The Mountain Bike Skills Manual - Clive Forth

Has chapters at the beginning on the history of MTB and evolution of the bikes and components which I found quite interesting.

The skills stuff is pretty good too.

Found it in Waterstones.

Some of the stuff is in the wrong date order in this book. When i was up Mabie last had a hour + long conversation with Clive and he admitted some stuff mid to late nineties might have the wrong release dates. Thats when i was a teenager and dreamed of owing nice bits. i remember rotwild,zzyzx and the old DHO.

Graham Wallace

Here is a link to the website/blog of English mountain bike pioneer Geoff Apps. He has many alternative views on mountain bike design and I have been helping him to develop and improve his bikes for some time. The engineering aspects of some of our ideas could do with independent testing and analysis.

http://clelandcycles.wordpress.com/r-and-d/

trailpuppet

http://mtblegends.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLH8GWue ... re=related
http://www.sonic.net/~ckelly/Seekay/mtbwelcome.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWWjXID2vik

melon92

Thanks guys, this should give me a good foundation

I'm also planning on contacting the various companies UK and USA based as its the technologies that they produced.

regards

Melon