Oldest mountain bike in UK?

[Retro Spud]

Re: Re:

The story goes like this: .......What made him start thinking about designing a custom made bike was a 'Bike of the Future' competition being held by a UK newspaper or magazine. Drawing also on his motorcycle trials experience he drew up a design and entered it. He wasn't alone as their were several other designs that the judges derided as peddle powered scramble motorbikes and so decided not to award any prizes in their 'leisure bikes category'.

And that’s where I lost interest, the bike that ultimately arrived looks like an off road bike for the country vicar to plod around on not something more edgy and purposeful like a mountain bike (peddle powered scramblers)

I just don’t get it, comparing this to a mountain bike is like trying to shoe horn a Motorcross bike into the same box as a Paris Dakar bike sure they’re all off roaders but certainly not the same.

Or put another way this is the off road version of a touring bike, and old men buy touring bikes - youngsters go racing,

and at the prices quoted above it never was aimed at anything other than the older far more affluent gent for pottering round the woods on.


Of course there’s a place in history for this - but let’s not confuse the branches of evolution and get dewy-eyed with national pride,
It’s a bike of its time that had some great features but as an all round package it failed to stand the test of time or set the benchmark.


Big respect to Geoff and also Graham Wallace for archiving the story,

So what is the oldest ... I’d suggest we at least return to Geoff earlier creation and his competition entry - and whilst we’re at it acknowledge he was not alone in entering and credit other visionary’s equally.


There must have been life before ....so can we move on now and pursue the original question

 

[M-Power]

Re:

I would love to see pictures of Richard Grant’s original Fisher Klunker and any early Ritchey Mountainbikes, if he still has them. Wonder if he is a member on here.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re: Re:

So what is the oldest ... I’d suggest we at least return to Geoff earlier creation and his competition entry - and whilst we’re at it acknowledge he was not alone in entering and credit other visionary’s equally.

There must have been life before ....so can we move on now and pursue the original question

In terms of function a mountain bike is merely a type of safety bicycle that has been tweaked to improve its off-road capability. In crediting the visionarys behind it we need to include a large number of individuals who both created and improved the safety bicycle and those who subsequently did the tweaking.


The original question is open to a wide degree of interpretation simply because people's views of what a mountain bike is differ. Most would say that a mountain bike has to have fat tyres whilst in reality the width of the tyres used on some mountain bikes is quite modest by historical road bike standards. Can a mountain bike have drop handlebars? Do they need wide ratio gears or will a single speed suffice etc.

As a result, despite a wide knowledge of off-road cycling history I can't in fact accurately answer the question as posed. All I can do is provide historical information that may help others to form an opinion depending on their own personal understanding of the question.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re: Re:

I would love to see pictures of Richard Grant’s original Fisher Klunker and any early Ritchey Mountainbikes, if he still has them. Wonder if he is a member on here.

I do have a picture somewhere of Richard Grant's original Klunker though as far as I am aware he is not a member on here.


Info on early Ritchey mountain bikes in the UK here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=344180

There must be pictures of the two Ritchey Mountain bikes that Gary Smith of F.W. Evans preped for a trans-Sahara expedition that took place in 1983. It was these bikes that prompted Smith to approach Saracen with a mind to having similar bikes manufactured.

Does anyone here have pictures of Tim Gartside and Pete Murphy's 1983 Sahara expedition? Off the top of my head I think it took place in February of that year.

 

[Woz]

Graham, do you have a decent picture of the Nokian Hakkapeliitta from that period?

I once quizzed some Finns what Hakkapeliitta meant; it's basically just an historical name and has been used to
brand all sorts of goods. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakkapeliitta)

Nokian (now Suomi Tyres http://www.suomityres.com/eng/home/#home) have only fairly recently dropped
the Hakkapeliitta name (it still seems active for Nokian car tyres though).

What I'm curious about is to what degree these tyres were sufficiently knobbly and if they
had metal studs and Apps removed them?

 

[mrkawasaki]

https://gypsybytrade.wordpress.com/2012 ... has-spice/

Much like a Rock'n'Road, methinks.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Graham, do you have a decent picture of the Nokian Hakkapeliitta from that period?

What I'm curious about is to what degree these tyres were sufficiently knobbly and if they
had metal studs and Apps removed them?

Hi Woz, I have a collection of Hakkapeliitta tyres from over the years. The only difference between them is the brand name changing from Nokia to Nokian and then Suomi and that some have tungsten carbide ice studs and some earlier versions were supplied with stud holes but no studs fitted.

The tread pattern was cleverly designed with hollow block knobbles on the edge of the tread and thin rubber strips that join the main knobbles together and in doing so they almost double the area of rear facing rubber pushing against the snow or mud. At low pressure the 90 degree angle between the tread and the sidewall gives them excellent lateral grip when used on soft surfaces. Their grip in snow is impressive and better than modern tyres I have tried.

They were intended to work at -40 degrees Celsius and came with heavy innertubes that were as wide as the tyre even when uninflated. On the downside each tyre and innertube weighed 3lbs.

The pictures I have posted show the 650Bx54mm size used on Geoff Apps Aventura bikes whilst the pictures kindly posted by mrkawasaki show the narrower 650Bx44mm size that Apps sent to Gary Fisher in the early 1980s. Latter on Apps also sent 650Bx47mm, 650Bx54mm and 700Cx47mm variants.

 

[M-Power]

Re:

Thanks for the links GJW and MrK. Amazing thread

 

[mrkawasaki]

GJW - under bar shifters... Why the preference? And uber narrow bars? Are those SunTour pedals - if so, what vintage/groupset do they come from - AG? I have a pair and don't know much about them.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

GJW - under bar shifters... Why the preference?

Apps tried every possible configuration irrespective of whether the manufacture intended its products to be used that way or not. I would guess that he was trying to keep the top of the handlebar clear to reduce the risk of injury in a crash, though it is equally likely that he could just be playing around with the handlebar ergonomics of that first production Aventura.

And uber narrow bars?

Earlier Clelands mostly used very wide motor-cross or motorcycle trials handlebars. Over time these got cut down as it was found that you didn't need that much leverage to control a 54mm wide front tyre running on narrow rims at 10psi. Even faced with a pile of house bricks the tyre just snakes around them with remarkably little kickback. On one occasion I demonstrated this by cycling up a heap of builders rubble, did a U-turn on the top and then came down the along same route I had ascended. Something that would wreck the sidewalls of lesser tyres and be an impossible manoeuvre when using high tyre pressures.

Anyhow in Geoff's proving grounds of the Chiltern forests there are lots of closely planted trees and so wide handlebars just aren't practical. Also In summer when the nettles are tall, high handlebars are a very practical idea.

Are those SunTour pedals - if so, what vintage/groupset do they come from - AG? I have a pair and don't know much about them.

They are Sun Tour MP1000 BMX pedals with titanium axles though the steel axled variant looks identical. Geoff Apps used these on most of his early bikes as they had sealed bearings and were a good option before the first MTB pedals arrived on the market. If you do have a pair they are highly sought after by owners of Geoff Apps bikes.