Free Will

AS CATEGORIES BLUR, RIDERS PREVAIL

- Travis Engel

There was a time not too long ago when you didn’t choose your bike. Your terrain, topography, social circles, fitness and body height chose it for you. Circumstance would all but lock you down to the travel, geometry, frame material and wheel size you should have. If the constellation of events between the Big Bang and your discovery of mountain biking happened to put you in the Pacific Northwest at 22 years old in the late 2000s rooming with a house full of snowboarders who were getting restless during the summer, it wouldn’t be hard for us to guess your bike’s fork travel and stanchion diameter.

Those days are quickly dying. Trail, all-mountain and enduro have bled into each other like music genres. Now, nearly every bike you see is a two-wheeled version of “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X feat. Billy Ray Cyrus. Categories are becoming more and more irrelevant. Your trails no longer decide what you should ride. You do. Can’t nobody tell you nothing.