A New Way Of Exploring The Outdoors: Mountain Biking

There's always some new sport brewing, whether it's something more extreme that somehow makes its way to the mainstream, like skateboarding and rollerblading, or something so weird that not many people are ever going to take it up, like kiteboarding or skydiving. And most sports that have been created have something to do with invention and innovation, where there's a need for a new use for an area, or an object.

A growing number of alternative sports for independent-minded people of all ages have been succeeding lately in The States, but nothing is doing quite as well as mountain biking, which has managed to carve out a niche previously only seen for skateboarders, who transformed from weirdos to mainstream. With a variety of different styles and methods, mountain biking is quickly sweeping the nation.

Rather than simply riding a bicycle across town, or even riding one around a track, mountain biking freed the bicycle from its pavement environment. Now, riding a bicycle was more about balance, since mountain trails had to be dealt with. Different riders, in urban areas, even put their own twist on things and figured out ways to make city riding challenging, taking to natural obstacles in much the same way that skateboarders did.

Yes, during the course of mountain biking, there have been many developments in different styles and techniques. Whether it's learning to do a backflip while flying through the air or just going out and riding a designated trail for a couple of hours, there are many different approaches to the sport of mountain biking, all of them correct, fun, and healthy.

With so much innovation to the sport, it's sometimes difficult to tell which are different styles, and which are just new takes on old concepts that aren't actually a separate riding school. That's not as important as figuring out what type of riding one wants to be participating in, but can also be helpful for making a choice--and even figuring out a bike to use--at some point down the road.

Next, there's dirt jumping, one of the other newer variations of the sport, which involves launching bicycles and riders off of man-made or naturally occurring jumps, where the object is to complete a series of tricks before landing on the ground. The protective gear for this is usually more extreme, and riders usually have a great deal of practice before heading into this style of riding.

A good transition from the type of mountain biking that most people picture into the more trick oriented riding is urban or street mountain biking, which many people would rather just categorize as an "extreme sport" but in an urban manner. The trick of this riding is to head to either deserted urban areas, or into more natural settings, and try to perform tricks and maneuver locations that are as they are when arriving. Often, the bicycles are a great deal lighter than those used for all-around mountain biking.

For most people with access to the trails, the obvious starting off point for riding is to begin with cross-country mountain biking. Just as simple as the name sounds, cross-country is all about the bicycle and the terrain, with no added obstacles or epic jumps. Cross-country riders have larger, more durable bicycles, and tackle everything from bumpy uphill trails to muddy, tricky downhill slopes. It's a great way to learn about balance and endurance.

Other more extreme variations on regular cross-country mountain biking that involve more remote locations include downhill, where riders just try to get to the bottom of a run as quickly as possible, as well as short cross, which is a combination of downhill, where the idea is to get to the bottom as fast as possible, but this time on even more challenging slopes. The extreme short slopes have a lot more obstacles and there is a much higher risk of crashing.

Since mountain biking is such a new and exciting sport, surely many other different variations and styles are bound to pop up in the next few years. But far from being just an outsider's sport, it's beginning to get the kind of acclaim that could eventually mean Olympic trials. Regardless of how mainstream or not it is, mountain biking is an incredible opportunity to participate in a sport that actually involves heading out into nature. Even if the closest thing to nature that's around is a park in New York City, those who are participating in mountain biking are outside in a way that other sports just haven't done, and the result will hopefully be more people of all ages who are healthy and not glued to screens all day long.