An Unusual Ride - mostly USE

robdeanhove · Jan 5, 2015

pete_mcc":3gf59xj7 said:
-L-":3gf59xj7 said:

Didn't geoff apps play around with big wheeled bikes in the early 80's?

Click to expand...

He certainly did, and it's generally accepted that Wes Willits was the creator of the modern 29er, Gary Fisher was very late to the party but stole credit regardless and Brant came trailing in much later to capitalise on the trend, not create it.

I would agree Gary Fisher never invented 29ers, but he was massively influential in commercialising them, popularising the, and getting the UCI to allow them in bike races. In my opinion at least.

GrahamJohnWallace · Jan 10, 2015

pete_mcc":3kpcjo0q said:
-L-":3kpcjo0q said:

Didn't geoff apps play around with big wheeled bikes in the early 80's?

Click to expand...

He certainly did, and it's generally accepted that Wes Willits was the creator of the modern 29er, Gary Fisher was very late to the party but stole credit regardless and Brant came trailing in much later to capitalise on the trend, not create it.

Wheel size debate England circa 1983:
In the late 1970s, Geoff Apps discovered a unique source of big fat knobbly tyres in Finland and set about designing bikes to fit them. Here's a photo from 1983 showing a 700c Range-Rider prototype (left) next to two 650b wheeled production Cleland Aventuras

Before the 29ers came the tyres.
In the early 1980s Geoff Apps sent 100s of these Nokia Hakkapeliitta snow tyres to Gary Fisher & Charlie Kelly. Around 1988 Bruce Gordon used some of these to create his 'Rock n' Road' bikes. And when he ran out of these tyres he had some copies manufactured, which Wes Williams also used on his own 700c off-road bikes. Williams then persuaded Gary Fisher to fund the mould-making for a new 700x52c tyre, the WTB Nanoraptor. The rest is history

splitty21 · Jan 10, 2015

Looks like the 29er is more retro than the 26er!

Some good info graham .....

GrahamJohnWallace · Jan 10, 2015

splitty21":18yx9ny0 said:
Looks like the 29er is more retro than the 26er!

Some good info graham .....

In Britain the first Geoff Apps bike was 650b around 1979 and his first 700c in 1981.
Also in 1981 Chas Roberts built a 26" mountain bike frame for an American customer and UK amateur frame-builder Tony Oliver made a US style mountain bike for himself that he showed off at the 1981 York cycle show. And though it was not a mountain bike, 1981 was also the year that the 26" tyred Raleigh Bomber was first manufactured.

In America the first 26" custom built mountain bike was Joe Breeze's Breezer number one in 1977. Fisher & Kelly's MountainBikes company started making 26" wheeled bikes in 1979 though according to some reports from Fisher, around 1981 they did consider selling larger wheeled bikes using the tyres provided by Apps, but ruled this out because of high import cost and availability issues. The Tom Ritchey bikes using Apps provided tyres were known as 'Competitions' and used for racing until better quality 26" tyres became available in the US.

By the time Gary fisher stopped importing 650b and 700c tyres from Apps in 1984 there were at least four Marin frame-builders making bikes to fit them.

RobMac · Jan 10, 2015

Re:

Guys can we get back on topic please this is looking more like Bike Chat 1998 --> than For Sale 1998 -->

Harryburgundy · Jan 10, 2015

Re: Re:

RobMac":gawiyeqk said:
Guys can we get back on topic please this is looking more like Bike Chat 1998 --> than For Sale 1998 -->

Too right...a Ronnie Corbett sketch would be more concise!

birdnestboy · Jan 11, 2015

Re:

So still no pictures of what's for sale...

splitty21 · Jan 11, 2015

Yeah come on let's see some pics!

splitty21 · Jan 12, 2015

Got the pics.

Dibs please

Cheers

Rob

johnalpi · Jan 12, 2015

An Unusual Ride - mostly USE

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