Mountain Bicycles I Have Adored
by Patty Mooney

In 1986, the year before we married, my boyfriend, Mark, and I sold everything, bought a camper, and embarked on a journey around North America. We first learned about mountain biking in the Yukon where riders rated a mountain by how many “headers” you took riding down: The higher the rating, the more popular the trail. After seeing a man riding his bike through a stream, we had to find out more about the sport. We hooked up with some gregarious guys at a sports shop where Mark and I listened enviously as the “Yukon Wild Bunch” showed off their bright bikes and recounted their fun exploring the Great North. “You’ll never know how great it is,” they said, “until you try it yourself.”

The image of riding into an endless sunset over lush mountains instantly obsessed Mark and I. When we returned home to San Diego, we spent the last of our remaining dollars on two Alpina Sports, mine red and his blue, and gave them to each other for Christmas. Thereafter Mark and I would become known to friends, family, and complete strangers as “the crazy mountain bike couple.”

I’ll never forget the first time we took those bikes out to our favorite trail in San Diego County, in the Cleveland National Forest, and encountered a stream crossing. Mark zoomed right through it, while I dismounted, preparing to walk my bike across. Mark looked back, saying, “Don’t you dare. Ride your bike across. That’s what it’s made for!” And so I did. And so it was.

Riding the Alpina Sport was for me at the time like flying on a feather. And we’re talking about absolutely no suspension. I suppose you can’t miss what doesn’t yet exist, right?

In the late 80’s, Mark and I started a company called New & Unique Videos, and because of our passion for the sport, we began producing mountain-bike videos. Phyllis McCullough at Raleigh had faith in us from the beginning, and proved it by sponsoring us with a pair of blue and silver Raleigh Technium Chills. Mark and I got married on those Raleighs in 1987 along our favorite trail, up a few miles from that very first stream crossing. At the time, we were in the midst of producing “The Great Mountain Biking Video” which featured riding tips by pros like John Tomac, Ned Overend and Tinker Juarez and which every avid mountain biker had to have.

Over the next few years, we produced a few other mountain bike titles, including “Ultimate Mountain Biking: Advanced Techniques and Winning Strategies,” “Battle At Durango: First-Ever World Mountain Bike Championships” and “John Howard’s Lessons in Cycling.”

Then in 1993, Mark and I rolled up our sleeves, donned our Blackbottoms and prepared for the “biggest, best, most orgasmic” mountain-bike video we could conceive, “Full Cycle: A World Odyssey.” It took us two years to gather sponsorship, plot locations, travel, shoot video and edit our masterpiece. This “endless summer with mountain bikes” took us to the American Southwest, Canada, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Greece, Wales, Australia, Tahiti and India. “World Odyssey” garnered 13 international awards. We could not have reached this “pinnacle” of our mountain-bike video career without the faith and encouragement of Phyllis who had left Raleigh to work for Klein.

Phyllis sent Mark and me two Klein Attitudes; mine was the orange-yellow fade, and Mark’s was the green-blue. Meanwhile, I modified the Raleigh for street riding with slick tires, and ended up commuting on it to an office job for eight years. It’s now over 20 years old and I STILL ride it on the streets of San Diego. Talk about reliable transportation!

The orange-fade Attitude I rode in “World Odyssey” accompanied me to the world’s greatest ranges: Mt. Everest, Mt. Olympus, the Matterhorn and Tahiti’s Mt. Orohena. I rode it along scenic single-track forest trails, over bridges, across streams, alongside waterfalls and beneath rainbows, and once, down a stone staircase where three painted Indian elephants chortled at me.

Then, one fateful sunny desert day in my own “backyard,” my Attitude and I plummeted over the side of a cliff; A big, rocky, deadly cliff. The Attitude bounded 500 feet down to the bottom of Carrizo Gorge, while I landed on a rock ledge 20 feet down. This life-altering experience taught me many things, primarily to pay attention to where I am going! After recuperating from my “cliff dive,” and changing my “attitude,” Phyllis, our kind benefactor, surprised Mark and me with two new yellow Klein Mantras. Imagine our shock and gratitude when we learned this was one of Phyllis's last acts before succumbing to cancer.

The Mantra carried me through another several years of gorgeous trails. Mark and I used to travel annually to Moab, Utah for the Fat Tire Festival in October, and I felt so cocky on that Mantra – maybe a little too cocky – that I broke my collarbone on Porcupine Rim. I know, it sounds like the title of a song.

In 2002, when the Mantra began showing her age along with a few scars and creaky joints, Klein comped me one last mountain bike, a silver Adept Pro. That was my favorite Klein of all, and I treasured all the adventures spent in the saddle, sailing on into the new century. As Benjamin Button says in the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” I was thinking how nothing lasts, and what a shame that is.

And so it is that Mark recently noticed a crack in the frame of my Adept. He had already bought himself a new Yeti a year or so ago, but I was still hooked on my Klein, vowing to ride it into the ground. Well, as we know, Klein is no more, and Trek has taken over Klein’s assets. Mark gave the people at our local Trek Superstore a call. Matt, the General Manager arranged to trade in the Adept frame for a new Trek Fuel EX9 with rear shock. In going back and forth during many phone calls with Matt, we realized that fitting the frame with new componentry would be much more costly than simply buying a new bike. Matt gave us a great deal on an EX8 which suits my riding style just fine; it’s leaps and bounds better than my Adept, as eight years in the world of bicycle technology might as well be a millennium.

When you think about it, there is something intimate going on between a rider and their bicycle. You’re grinding up and zooming down trails with that seat firmly gripped between your legs at your “second chakra,” which as it happens, signifies fluidity and grace, depth of feeling, sexual fulfillment and the ability to accept change. Really, isn’t that what mountain biking is all about? I can’t imagine life without mountain biking. I plan to keep riding with my best buddy, Mark, for as long as that neon orange sunset unfolds before us. Anybody need a Trek Fuel EX9 frame?

Patty Mooney has been riding a bicycle since she was seven years old. In 1986, she and her husband, Mark Schulze, discovered the sport of mountain biking while traveling through Canada where a mountain was rated by the amount of headers one was liable to experience while riding down it. Both Mooney and Schulze were hooked and bought a couple of Alpina Sport mountain bikes to ride the local San Diego trails. They married in the mountains on their mountain bikes, then began racing. And then it occurred to the video production duo to begin producing how-to mountain bike videos which were the first of the genre. To learn more about their classic mtb titles, go to New Unique Videos.