There has been an upsurge of new mountain bikers recently. I hope that these mountain bikers pick it up as a sport and for keeping healthy not for some other non related reasons.
Throughout my mountain biking activities of more than 20 years,I have gone through many changes and development and have seen riders come and go. Some have started strongly and bought expensive bikes but their new found interest did not last. They ended up switching to some other less strainous hobbies or activities.
In the earlier part of my involvement, most of the mountain bikers I knew were ex motocross riders who quit competition and further their offroad motorcycle riding interest via bicycle riding. There were no local bikeshop dealing in mountain bikes then hence we had to import our MTBs. The most popular brand was BRIDGESTONE. It was expensive costing about 3k in 1980s ringgit but we had no choice. Local bikeshops started to import MTBs in the early 90s and the business mushroomed since then. Now these shops are raking sales of up to 4million turnaround a year,thanks to internet and other medias. I think most of you riders know which shops Im talking about.

Having lived in Shah Alam all my  married life,naturally Taman Pertanian Bukit Cahaya was my first re entry riding ground both MTB and trailbikes before it was fully developed. That part of Shah Alam city was fully forested and  I can even trail ride to the top of Bukit Sapu Tangan on my trail motorcycle. Global concerns over the environment triggered me to concentrate on mountain biking and I left my dirt bikes to rot. My mode or style of riding was all mountain and was constantly in search of new riding grounds. It so happened that one of my road cycling mate in Shah Alam moved to his new house in Taman Tun Dr.Ismail hence  began our exploration of Bukit Kiara and this was in the early 90s well before trail builders started to construct bridges,un natural jumps and drops and started the whole freeride and downhill craze.......well some is good and riders like me had to move to a more natural settings. Again constant searches began. In the transition period I did lots of road tourings around the country.
I have and interest in Trials riding both engined and pedaled since my schooling days and the lack of riding trails to my liking somehow pushed me to concentrate on this style of riding. Trials requires no big space and you can even ride urban trials style quietly without disturbing others. I did that for a few years with my sons  and tourings around the country too.
I moved back to trail riding on dirtbikes only in the last couple of years. Actually at first it was just to ride around and search for new trails for mountain biking but eventually I got to know a few moto riders who wanted to learn trials style of trail riding and I began to show them a thing or two and the whole activity started to get serious. Since trials style of riding requires natural singletrack and obstacles,we began to search for such trails in Shah Alam and you know what? Mountain bikers ride there too...........