Girls Catch On To Mountain Biking

Fisher sells his own line of mountain bikes, too. Ritchey makes tires for mountain bikes. In Oregon, those bikes and tires are finding plenty of homes, as cyclists in Portland and Eugene discover the mountain bike experience.

"It's just so much fun,'' said Colin Yates, 27, a sheet-metal installer in Portland for Mountain Bike Tour. Yates bought a mountain bike four years ago after reading about the bikes. Eventually, after two years of "hard'' riding, the frame of his first bike cracked. Some people might have taken that as a sign to spend more money on the next bike. Not Yates.

"The good stuff bends just as easy as the cheap stuff,'' he said. Two years ago, Mike Ambrose, 26, a messenger in Portland, decided to buy a mountain bike instead of a touring bike for a Mountain Bike Tour that he and a friend were planning.

"I thought it would be fun to take any road we wanted and not worry about flat tires.'' He never had to worry. "I rode (the bike) all the way to Boise and I didn't get a flat,'' he said. A few months after he got home he rode it on some hiking trails and ''loved it.'' "I think I'll sell my road bike. I don't use it anymore,'' he said. Scott "Tupper'' Kays, a furniture salesman in Eugene, was Ambrose's traveling companion and also chose a mountain bike instead of a touring bike. ''I was thinking it would hold up more,'' Kays said. ''It just feels more solid with all the packs'' on it. - Prefers upright riding He became a trail rider and a former road bike rider, too. He prefers the upright position of a mountain bike that allows him to "kind of sightsee.'' Sandy Petry, 22, a bicycle mechanic in Eugene, tried her first mountain bike three years ago. Before that, she had ridden a road bike for four years. Since she has no car, she discovered the bike made for dependable, all-weather transportation. "(I found) I could ride it in the snow,'' she said. She and her boyfriend have set up their mountain bikes to do daily chores -- carry the laundry, pack the groceries. She is an avid trail rider and sometimes enters mud races, where she finds herself in the minority. "Not many women do that kind of riding,'' she said. ''Except hardcores -- like me.'' The bottom line of all this devotion is rapidly increasing sales at bicycle shops.

Mountain Biking