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  1. Repack Rider

    Fat Tire Flyer book launch

    Last night I re-launched the new edition of Fat Tire Flyer: Repack and the Birth of Mountain Biking. I was assisted by Joe Breeze and Wende Cragg. There is a video of the event on the Marin Museum of Bicycling Facebook page. I don't have any way of getting my books to UK in bulk. I have...
  2. Repack Rider

    Fat Tire Flyer is back, and it's expensive

    They come in boxes of eight. I looked up the shipping by United Parcel Service, cheaper than US mail. It was $131 for the shipping, add $320 for eight copies, total is about $450 USD for eight delivered to UK.
  3. Repack Rider

    Fat Tire Flyer is back, and it's expensive

    In 2014 VeloPress published my book, Fat Tire Flyer: Repack and the Birth of Mountain Biking. The company was sold three years ago, and my title was dropped along with many others. I took back the rights, and purchased the computerized layout, since the publisher had no further use for it. At...
  4. Repack Rider

    What mountain bikes did you own BITD?

    A series of modified Schwinns from 1974-1977. Breezer #2 in 1978. A series of Ritcheys from 1979 to 1983. American Breezer 1986
  5. Repack Rider

    Rewriting Mountain Bike History?

    For clarification, the parts list to the left of the photo of the "Woodsie" bike are the specs for the 1981 Ritchey/MountainBike, not the Woodsie bike..
  6. Repack Rider

    Today's Ride

    I was invited to participate in the 45th anniversary of the 1978 ride from Crested Butte to Aspen in Colorado, over 12,700' Pearl Pass. Here is the famous photograph. (I'm fourth from the left.) I don't own an e-bike, but I told the organizers I would need one for the ride, since I live at...
  7. Repack Rider

    Carlos Santana

    I was that the Fillmore West when Carlos auditioned for Bill Graham in 1969. Later, as the roadie for another Bay Area band, the Sons of Champlin, I worked on a lot of shows with his band.
  8. Repack Rider

    Fat Tire Flyer is back in print

    Two years ago VeloPress took my book, Fat Tire Flyer: Repack and the Birth of Mountain Biking out of print. That made it collectible and the price went up over 10X.. Now I am back in print. The new publisher is Terran Empire Publishing. The price has gone up, but the good news is that my...
  9. Repack Rider

    Fat Tire Flyer is back!

    After two years in limbo, my book, Fat Tire Flyer: Repack and the Birth of Mountain Biking, is back in print. The new publisher is Terran Empire Publishing. The price has gone up, but the good news is that my royalty went up even more. New format is slightly smaller than the old one, but the...
  10. Repack Rider

    Biking After Heart Valve Replacement.

    My friend Jim Sullivan won the US Veterans National Championship in 1989 with a pig valve in his heart. It's still there, and he swears it was his secret weapon.
  11. Repack Rider

    Article 1989 John Tomac MBUK Article

    I wrote the article. Also available here.
  12. Repack Rider

    Rewriting Mountain Bike History?

    Here is my article in the RSF club newsletter from the '80s.
  13. Repack Rider

    Rewriting Mountain Bike History?

    The first time I took a balloon tire (tyre) bike on a dirt trail as an adult, was in 1973 when a friend called the house that Gary Fisher and I shared and said, "Hey remember when we were kids [in the 1950s] and rode our bikes on trails? Let's take your [balloon tire] town bikes out on a trail."...
  14. Repack Rider

    Rewriting Mountain Bike History?

    With the evolution of the bikes and riders, "Repack" would be considered tame by modern DH standards. Strava lets you do your own timing. The fact remains, that no one on a modern DH bike has beaten times set on that course by men on modified 1930's cruisers.
  15. Repack Rider

    Rewriting Mountain Bike History?

    People rode bicycles on dirt roads since the inception of the bicycle. There were groups like the Rough-Stuff Fellowship (Gary Fisher and I were members) who rode on bridle paths and trails. Cyclocrossers rode all kinds of rough terrain. Post-war kids in France and England had versions of...
  16. Repack Rider

    Rewriting Mountain Bike History?

    The modern mountain bike arose in one place and time. A lot of people claim to be part of that process, who were not. I often wonder why no one thought of it before we did. Our inspiration was putting a modern racing bicycle next to a 40-year old modified Schwinn, and observing that there were...
  17. Repack Rider

    Every issue of Fat Tire Flyer

    I have finished scanning every page of every issue of the first mountain bike magazine, which I edited from 1980 to 1987. You can see them here. For a random sampling of the other vintage mountain bike literature in the Mountain Bike Legacy Archive, click this.
  18. Repack Rider

    Tomac Merlin / Raleigh re build article on Radavist… just posting in case missed it

    Ran across this in an old issue of Winning.
  19. Repack Rider

    Uncover girl and the MTB Legacy Archive

    I was scanning an old issue of Bicycle Action, when who should call me but the girl on the back cover, which makes her the uncover girl. While I have everyone's attention, it has been raining steadily here in California, so I just sit in my little office at the Marin Museum of Bicycling and...
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