If you are looking to buy or use a mountain bike, there are literally hundreds of places advertising on the Internet and you can be sure to find the best deals. It is best not to completely ignore your local mountain bike dealer though, after all you will be turning to them for advice and spares later on.

The other thing to consider is that although you can sometimes grab some great deals on mountain bikes on the Internet, you have to consider things like carraige costs and the danger of your new prized-possession getting damaged in transit.

While mountain biking is typically associated with the cyclists pitting their reflexes, strength, and athletic abilities against some of the world's most treacherous back country wildernesses, deserts, and canyons, there is a new breed of mountain biker--the city dweller. Urban mountain biking may be the next big thing in sports.

Where To Go Urban Mountain Biking

One place where urban mountain biking fans can develop their skills is at their local skateboarding parks. Almost every city of more than a few thousand people has at least one skateboarding park, and biking in them is a lot more convenient that finding ways to do urban mountain biking on public streets or in parking lots and parking garages.

Skateboarding parks will let urban mountain biking riders perform many different stunts, by tackling the ramps, rails, ledges, and bowls the skateboarders use. Vertical riding on a half pipe doing twists and air spins will require urban mountain biking skills as advanced as any needed in freeriding, and will also require full protective gear including a full face helmet. The risks that you could fall on concrete from seven or with feet above a ten foot vertical ramp are not to be taken lightly.

Skateboarding parks are ready and waiting for those ready to do some urban mountain riding and best of all, the bikers don't have to send time digging or building obstacles. But for those bikers who don't have a local skateboard park, or those who live in cities where skateboard parks have banned urban mountain biking, street urban mountain biking is an option.

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Street urban mountain biking is great for those who like to explore and take on whatever challenges they find. Those who have been lucky enough to hone their skills in skateboard parks can try them out on the city streets, going with the flow of downtown traffic, jumping gaps and grinding ledges or rails, and even tackling stair sets--but only if they are very, very good, and have someone spotting for them so that they are in no danger of landing on someone. Street urban mountain biking is the type of mountain biking most likely to cause controversy, and those who engage in it have an obligation to ride with the safety of people and property as their first priorities.

Urban Mountain Bikes

Urban mountain bikes are solidly built to a very basic design, with 20-inch wheels and intended to make their riders do the work. They do not have accessories like pegs and suspension forks to make them more maneuverable so that less experienced riders can look good riding them.

Urban mountain biking is gradually gaining in popularity, but until it has enough support so that every major urban area boasts a number of quality singletracks, urban mountain biking will remain limited to those daredevils willing to perform their stunts on public thoroughfares, in public parks, and while ascending or descending public stairways.

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