MARK LANGTON: SBMBC Guest Speaker October 1998
Mark Langton has been a mountain bike journalist and advocate for over 12 years, and has been teaching mountain biking skills since 1988. He began riding mountain bikes in 1983 in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. In 1985 he began racing and attained the rank of Expert, garnering a factory sponsorship from Yeti Cycles and numerous top-10 finishes in national level competition, including fourth overall in the nation in 1988.
He was the editor of Mountain Biking magazine (Challenge Publications), one of the country’s most successful mountain bike publications, for over seven years during the mountain biking boom of the late 80s and early to mid-90s. He is also the author of Golden Books’ “Mountain Biking”, and co-author of Fine Edge Productions’ “Riding Santa Monica Mountain’s Best Trails”, a comprehensive guide to riding in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
As an advocate, Mark has helped shape mountain bike use policy in the largest urban parkland in the country. He currently sits on the boards of the Concerned Off-Road Bicyclists Association (CORBA) and the City of Thousand Oaks’ Conejo Open Space Trails Advisory Committee (COSTAC). Mark is also a founding member of these two organizations, 1987 and 1988 respectively. Mark also helped establish and grow the Mountain Bike Unit (MBU), the nation’s largest volunteer mountain bike back country patrol with over 100 members, sponsored by the National Park Service.
As a freelance journalist and consultant, Mark has written for some of the country’s top outdoor enthusiast magazines, including Snow Country and Bicycling. He has also written text for technical manuals and consumer catalogs for some of the world’s largest bicycle companies, including Giant USA, Diamondback,Bianchi USA, and Univega (Raleigh USA). Other positions include Media Relations Coordinator for the 1997 and 1998 Southern California Bicycle Expos, California’s most successful consumer expo, and Director of Communications for the National Off-Road Bicycle Association (NORBA) in 1992. Mark is currently a monthly cycling columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News, and the Gear Editor at Weider Publications’ Men’s Fitness magazine.