When did we stop calling our bikes "ATB"s?

[legrandefromage]

When did we stop calling our bikes "ATB"s?

Thursday.

 

[Iwasgoodonce]

I think it was because those companies here (UK/Europe) assumed that the Americans had trade marked the term Mountain Bike. They needed an alternative and that was ATB. The term mountain bike wasn't traded as I suppose it was too generic? Anyhow the term ATB slowly faded from use.

 

[FluffyChicken]

I think it was because those companies here (UK/Europe) assumed that the Americans had trade marked the term Mountain Bike. They needed an alternative and that was ATB. The term mountain bike wasn't traded as I suppose it was too generic? Anyhow the term ATB slowly faded from use.

From memory it was because they forgot to/didn't get around to it.
err It's in Charlie's big long thread somewhere.

To my corner of the world (in the turn of the 90's up to the mid 90's) ATB where always the lower end bikes. Only when you got to 'Deore' level and a quality frame did you get an MTB. mudguards, reflectors, lights started to get ripped of and you started to take things seriously.

mountain bike or variations of it have been around since before it's birth. I'm not sure when the semi-acronymed word MTB came about but i'm sure it'll be something to do with Charlie (Kelly) et al. What did Spesh. call them when they made the first production mountain bike ?

 

[unkleGsif]

When did we stop calling our bikes "ATB"s?

January 1st, 1990


G

 

[yeti-man]

What happend With "woodsie"... think I'm going to start describe my bikes as woodsies ☺

In Norway we still use "offroader" though...

 

[Neil]

To my corner of the world (in the turn of the 90's up to the mid 90's) ATB where always the lower end bikes.

That's my recollection, too.

The Raleigh Mustang I bought in 88, labelled (IIRC) as an ATB.

Although I do wonder if there was something of a British aspect to that.

Not sure I'd completely agree with the groupset thing, I think some of the greater numbered LX groupsets were perfectly acceptable - although truth be told, I never owned one, just rode several. And in the mid 90s I did buy an STX / STX/RC groupset to build up a hack bike, and that was fine too.

 

[SeeingisBelievingGTMuseum]

Not all parts of the world have mountains. I think the industry pushed the ATB moniker for that reason. The didn't want to offend any of the buying base who lived in areas like the US Midwest that had great trails but no mountains.

 

[firedfromthecircus]

What happend With "woodsie"... think I'm going to start describe my bikes as woodsies ☺

I'm with you. Let's start a woodsie movement.

It fits better with what I actually ride. I tend to ride in the woods, not on mountains very often, and not on all terrain, as sand is a bugger.
But nice singletrack in the woods.....aahhhhhhh

 

[FluffyChicken]

To my corner of the world (in the turn of the 90's up to the mid 90's) ATB where always the lower end bikes.

That's my recollection, too.

The Raleigh Mustang I bought in 88, labelled (IIRC) as an ATB.

Although I do wonder if there was something of a British aspect to that.

Not sure I'd completely agree with the groupset thing, I think some of the greater numbered LX groupsets were perfectly acceptable - although truth be told, I never owned one, just rode several. And in the mid 90s I did buy an STX / STX/RC groupset to build up a hack bike, and that was fine too.

Nothing agaisnt the components in the lower, but Deore xx up was the MTB groupsets for us. STX wasn't really around till the latter part of our MTB era but in my eye was the lower end Deore groupset just without the name (became what Deore LX used to be). but that becomes to specific for this talk. It is almost certainly brought about by Shimano's classification grip (performance off-road to general purpose, with Deore being one side and Exage being the other, couple that with the like of Rocky Mountain and Orange only starting at the Deore series range

To be fair to most companies they push MTB to mean 'offroad' and not written out as mountain biking. It's just a form-factor of a bike.


Other era's people or different influences may differ.
The company 'Mountain Bike' on the other hand...

 

[Neil]

To my corner of the world (in the turn of the 90's up to the mid 90's) ATB where always the lower end bikes.

That's my recollection, too.

The Raleigh Mustang I bought in 88, labelled (IIRC) as an ATB.

Although I do wonder if there was something of a British aspect to that.

Not sure I'd completely agree with the groupset thing, I think some of the greater numbered LX groupsets were perfectly acceptable - although truth be told, I never owned one, just rode several. And in the mid 90s I did buy an STX / STX/RC groupset to build up a hack bike, and that was fine too.

Nothing agaisnt the components in the lower, but Deore xx up was the MTB groupsets for us. STX wasn't really around till the latter part of our MTB era but in my eye was the lower end Deore groupset just without the name (became what Deore LX used to be). but that becomes to specific for this talk. It is almost certainly brought about by Shimano's classification grip (performance off-road to general purpose, with Deore being one side and Exage being the other, couple that with the like of Rocky Mountain and Orange only starting at the Deore series range

Truth be told, STX was a bit new fangled for me - I only bought it to build up a hack bike, specifically, because I didn't want to care about it, should something happen to it - and true to form, it did get nicked.

The bikes I actually bought (discounting the Mustang...) either had DX (91) or LX (95) on. The only reason I commented on the other groupsets being I did some miles on other peoples' bikes that had 400 or 500 LX on, and never really thought much about it, apart from the STI units feeling a bit more plastic-y than DX ones, they seemed to perform much the same.