Long before the iPhone became a vital organ for survival and long before I ever properly mountain biked, Apple had a hand held device called the Newton. Many companies had so-called personal assistant devices (palm pilot, handspring, etc..) that were more of a pain than a help. You had to learn how to write so that it would recognize your notes. The internet was in it's blinky tag infancy, no wifi so you had these crappy cards that were a sort of crappy bluetooth/wireless mess, hardly any cross-application support, nor sharing of data from any sort of cloud. Apple's Newton was amazing compared to the others. So well ahead of the curve. Unfortunately, the Newton too was well ahead of the curve of technology and it would be killed off by the return of Steve Jobs at the helm of the Apple ship. 20 some years later, the technology finally caught up (software, wifi, bluetooth, touch screen tech, ram, processor speed, etc..) and we are living the actuality of what the Newton dream had been long ago. Build it and eventually they will come...
I was thinking about that last Sunday as I was ripping my dropped bar rigid 1x mountain bike down a steep rocky trail. Traversing rocks, deep snow, some mud, more rocks, more snow, and lots and lots of rocky dry trail with a huge shit-eating grin on my face.
The thing is, rigid drop bar mountain bikes have been done times and times before. I am definitely far, far, far from the first. But I do feel that right now the technology has finally caught up to the initial promise of the drop bar mountain bike. We now have high volume tires with modern treads and tubeless capabilities. We have clutch derailleurs that lessen chain slap and helps keep the drivetrain running smoothly in the rough. We have gearing options that are workable across myriad terrains. Frame geometries have gotten better and more specific. And disc brakes have found their way into the realm of all biking. Build it and eventually they will come...
With the current trend of longer, slacker, lower mountain bike frames with shorter than short stems, wider that mega-wide bars, and longer travel in the mountain bike world, the options for a rigid singlespeeder are pretty slim. Add in the plethora of adjectives "gravel" and "adventure" muddying all sorts of bike-linguistics and it is easy to find oneself lost. That is where the dropbar 1x mountain bike comes in. It's the new rigid singlespeed (for gravel, for adventure, for bike packing, for what I've always called "mountain biking" = getting from point A to point B however the most fun and least paved way is).
Not only does it rip and put a smile on your face on the trails, but that long pavement or gravel road ride to and from the trail into that stupid headwind is a whole lot more pleasant with the drop bars than fighting it with flat bars.
