Mountain Biking
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6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Mountain Biking trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Mountain biking is young enough that the people who invented it are still riding. It began with a handful of Californians coasting old cruiser bikes down fire roads in the 1970s, and it soon had its own world championships, a place at the Olympics and an industry building machines nobody had imagined. This quiz covers the whole story: the pioneers and their first purpose-built bikes, the parts and technology that changed how people ride, the racers who dominated cross-country and downhill, and the trails, races and festivals that riders travel the world for. A few questions cover tricks and trail skills too. It is written for anyone who rides, from weekend trail centre regulars to fans who follow the World Cup. Most questions are fair game for a casual rider, and a handful will test those who know their racing history.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Downhill world champion Missy Giove raced with which dead pet, named Gonzo, hanging around her neck?
A piranha
A piranha, dried out after it died, became her trademark and later the centre of a Cannondale marketing campaign.
Q 02Which name did 1970s Marin County riders give a downhill race that left coaster-brake hubs needing fresh grease?
Repack
Repack was named for the chore after each run: riders braked so hard down the fire road near Fairfax, California, that the grease in their hubs smoked away.
Q 03Which retail giant is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, a town now famous for mountain bike trails?
Walmart
Walmart's founding family bankrolled the boom: the Walton Family Foundation had given $85 million to trail development in Arkansas by 2019.
Q 04Which California company launched the Stumpjumper in 1981, the first mass-production mountain bike?
Specialized
Specialized had the bike built in Japan, basing it on a custom design sold by Tom Ritchey, Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly; the model is still in production.
Q 05Mountain biking made its Olympic debut, with Paola Pezzo winning the first women's gold, at which city's Games?
Atlanta
Atlanta staged the first Olympic mountain bike races in 1996, not on a mountain but at a horse park in Conyers, Georgia.
Q 06Which British rider won Olympic mountain bike gold in Tokyo and Paris and a Tour de France stage on Alpe d'Huez?
Tom Pidcock
Tom Pidcock has also been a cyclo-cross world champion and won the road classic Strade Bianche, so he has reached the top on three kinds of bike.
Q 07Which desert town is the base for the Slickrock Trail, laid out in 1969 for Honda trail motorcycles?
Moab
Moab's famous loop crosses sandstone that grips tyres like sandpaper; settlers called it slickrock because their horses' metal shoes slid on it.
Q 08Which Canadian ski resort hosts the biggest stop of the Crankworx mountain bike festival each summer?
Whistler
Whistler has held Crankworx since 2004; it became the resort's largest annual festival and grew into a world tour with festivals in New Zealand, Australia and Austria.
Q 09Which trials rider from the Isle of Skye became famous through a 2009 street-riding video shot by his flatmate?
Danny MacAskill
Danny MacAskill posted the five-minute clip to YouTube in April 2009; two years later a signature trials frame was named after his home island.
Q 10Which rider won the Mountain Bike World Cup in 1998 and 1999 before winning the 2011 Tour de France?
Cadel Evans
Cadel Evans raced mountain bikes at two Olympics before switching to the road, where he twice finished second in the Tour before finally winning it.
Q 11Which Marin County peak just north of San Francisco is regarded as the birthplace of mountain biking?
Mount Tamalpais
Mount Tamalpais drew riders in the 1970s who freewheeled old balloon-tyre cruisers down its fire roads, long before anyone sold a bike made for the job.
Q 12Which Californian frame builder made the first purpose-built mountain bike in 1977, a machine now in the Smithsonian?
Joe Breeze
Joe Breeze was also one of the fastest of the early downhill racers, and riders simply called his ten hand-built machines Breezers.
Q 13Which Wisconsin bicycle company, begun in a red barn, bought pioneer Gary Fisher's mountain bike brand in the 1990s?
Trek
Q 21Which invitation-only freeride competition, first held in 2001, takes place near Zion National Park in Utah?
Red Bull Rampage
Red Bull Rampage offered $8,000 in prize money at its first edition and has since been called the Super Bowl of freeride.
Q 22Which style of bicycle, pioneered by Alaskan frame builders in the late 1980s, was developed to ride on snow and sand?
Fatbike
Fatbike tyres are typically 3.8 inches or wider, which spreads the load so the wheels float over bogs and mud as well.
Q 23A mountain bike world champion may race in a jersey of which design until the following year's World Championships?
Rainbow bands
Trek kept selling bikes under his name for years, then folded them into its own range in 2010 as the Gary Fisher Collection.
Q 14Which American brand's heavy 1930s and '40s cruiser bicycles were stripped and rebuilt into the first klunkers?
Schwinn
Schwinn cruisers were tough enough to survive the descents, so riders fitted them with better brakes, gears and motocross-style handlebars.
Q 15Which race format, sharing its name with a motorcycle sport, times riders only on the descents between untimed climbs?
Enduro
Enduro transfers are untimed but usually carry a time limit, so a one-day race of three to five timed stages rewards fitness as well as nerve.
Q 16Which suspension brand did former motorcycle racer Paul Turner found in 1989 to build forks for mountain bikes?
RockShox
RockShox brought motorcycle thinking to bicycles, and the first suspension forks of the early 1990s offered two inches of travel at most.
Q 17Which nickname is given to a mountain bike with front suspension only, a cheaper design that pedals more efficiently?
Hardtail
Hardtail bikes became popular almost overnight once suspension forks appeared, though improving full-suspension designs have been eating into their share since.
Q 18Which Swiss racer won ten elite cross-country world titles and the Olympic mountain bike gold medal in Rio?
Nino Schurter
Nino Schurter collected a full set of Olympic medals, taking bronze in 2008 and silver in 2012 before finally winning gold in 2016.
Q 19Which downhill racer, sister of fellow professionals Gee and Dan, won every round of the 2016 World Cup season?
Rachel Atherton
Rachel Atherton swept the series only months after becoming the first woman to win ten World Cup rounds in a row.
Q 20French downhill great Anne-Caroline Chausson won the first women's Olympic gold in which other branch of cycling?
BMX
BMX joined the Olympics in Beijing in 2008, and she won its first women's race after five straight World Cup series titles on a mountain bike.
Rainbow bands have marked cycling's world champions since 1927, and a winner may wear them only in the discipline where the title was won.
Q 24Giant, the world's largest bicycle maker and a familiar name on mountain bikes, was founded in 1972 in which place?
Taiwan
Taiwan's best-known bike brand started in Dajia, Taichung, and by 2014 it was turning out 6.6 million bicycles a year.
Q 25The 7stanes, seven mountain bike centres that each feature a stone sculpture, lie across the south of which country?
Scotland
Scotland's seven forest centres take their name from the Scots word for stone, and artist Gordon Young made one for each site.
Q 26Which Colorado town, the highest incorporated city in the United States, hosts a famous 100-mile mountain bike race?
Leadville
Leadville sits above 10,000 feet, and its bike race, first run in 1994, grew out of a 100-mile footrace over the same high country.
Q 27The Cape Epic, an eight-day mountain bike stage race for teams of two, is held in which country?
South Africa
South Africa has staged it in the Western Cape since 2004, and cycling's governing body rates the race hors catégorie, beyond categorisation.
Q 28Which mass-start race sends hundreds of riders at once down a glacier above the French resort of Alpe d'Huez?
Megavalanche
Megavalanche drops more than 2,600 vertical metres over 20 km, and racers may get down by any reasonable means, so many cut corners or walk their bikes.
Q 29Which Colorado town hosted the very first UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in 1990?
Durango
Durango's championships featured only cross-country and downhill races, and resident Ned Overend won the first men's cross-country world title.
Q 30Which road cycling star, once a junior mountain bike world champion, rode the mountain bike race at the Rio Olympics?
Peter Sagan
Peter Sagan chose it over the Rio road race, returning to the sport in which he had won his junior world title in 2008.