Freeride

Freeride is a discipline of mountain biking closely related to downhill biking and dirt jumping focused on tricks, style, and technical trail features. It is now recognized as one of the most popular disciplines within mountain biking.

The term freeriding was originally coined by snowboarders, meaning riding without a set course, goals or rules on natural terrain. In mountain biking, it is riding trail with the most creative line possible that includes style, amplitude, control, and speed. Many in the cycling industry suggest that the Laguna Rads were the first to freeride, that is riding terrain that didn't already have an existing path or network of trails.

The original freeride bikes were modified downhill bikes which utilized gearing that enabled the rider to go up hills as well as down them. Modern freeride bikes are similar to downhill bikes, but feature slightly less suspension travel and are lighter - which enables them to be ridden not just downhill but through more technical sections, such as North Shore obstacles. Additionally, most freeride bikes feature slightly steeper headangles and shorter wheelbases than pure downhill bikes to facilitate maneuverability on slower, technical sections of trail.

Ski areas have started to embrace the sport of freeriding, adding bike racks to chairlifts to create "lift accessed mountain biking". This helps ski areas operate year-round and gives the bikers the ability to ride more runs in less time.

A few specialist riders have embraced the sport including:

Due to similarities with the bicycles used and often the riding locations, the divisions between downhill riding and freeriding are often overlooked. For example freeride bikes have steeper head tube angles and shorter wheelbases for low-speed stability on technical stunts, while downhill bikes have slacker headtube angles and longer wheelbases for absolute high-speed stability at the cost of low-speed maneuverability. Downhill riding is primarily concerned with descending a slope on a given course as quickly as possible. There are often many obstacles in downhill riding, including jumps, drops, and rocky sections.

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