Rewriting Mountain Bike History?

[Repack Rider]

Reading the history it sounds more like it evolved in a few places. You chaps in the US were just better at marketing!

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 off-road bicycles, some even jumped them.

The difference maker was downhill racing. I didn't "invent the mountain bike." I invented downhill racing. The mountain bike invented itself in response.

All of the off-road groups that preceded mountain bikers stayed within the limits of their machinery. Downhill racing exceeded those limits by so much that new bikes had to be designed and built to handle that stress. In response to the new bikes, the courses evolved too. Now no one would attempt to ride a World Cup downhill course on anything but a full suspension bike with disc brakes.

It came as a surprise to me that anyone else would pay big money for a bike with fat tires.

In the last 40 years, hundreds of people have told me that they themselves "invented the mountain bike," long before I took up cycling, which is the primary reason I don't make that claim. AFAIK, no one has claimed that they invented the downhill off-road time trial before I did.

 

[m_xl]

Hi everyone…

Been reading this and other threads with interest.

I'm a member of the Rough-Stuff Fellowship and made two books featuring photos from their archive. The second book includes details of the links between the early mountain bikers in California and the Fellowship – Charlie Kelly, Gary Fisher and Holland Jones were members in the early 1980s.

John Finley Scott was also a member, and much earlier. In 1963 he contributed an article (attached here) to the club journal, which must be one of the earliest accounts of "rough-stuff" riding in the USA?

In that article he details a special rough-stuff bike he had made, built by Jim Guard in Southampton, UK, in 1961, with 650B wheels. I don't think this is his (Padgett-made?) "Woodsie" – that seems to have been made in 1953 according to MMBHOF (with a pic from the time).

This doesn't have any bearing on the Repack evolution, but thought I might be able to clear up some confusion over JFS that seems to have come from some inaccurate info in the various articles online on the subject…

He finishes by saying "Personally I expect rough-stuff riding to increase, because there are now many who are both cyclists and enthusiasts for remote regions and rough terrain. It is not unlikely that they will do as I have done and blend their interest in an American version of the British speciality."

Cheers

Max

 

[m_xl]

J

Hi everyone…

Been reading this and other threads with interest.

I'm a member of the Rough-Stuff Fellowship and made two books featuring photos from their archive. The second book includes details of the links between the early mountain bikers in California and the Fellowship – Charlie Kelly, Gary Fisher and Holland Jones were members in the early 1980s.

John Finley Scott was also a member, and much earlier. In 1963 he contributed an article (attached here) to the club journal, which must be one of the earliest accounts of "rough-stuff" riding in the USA?

In that article he details a special rough-stuff bike he had made, built by Jim Guard in Southampton, UK, in 1961, with 650B wheels. I don't think this is his (Padgett-made?) "Woodsie" – that seems to have been made in 1953 according to MMBHOF (with a pic from the time).

This doesn't have any bearing on the Repack evolution, but thought I might be able to clear up some confusion over JFS that seems to have come from some inaccurate info in the various articles online on the subject…

He finishes by saying "Personally I expect rough-stuff riding to increase, because there are now many who are both cyclists and enthusiasts for remote regions and rough terrain. It is not unlikely that they will do as I have done and blend their interest in an American version of the British speciality."

Cheers

Max

Just to add: the 1953 Woodsie was a Schwinn World diamond frame, but it did have handlebar mounted derailleur gears (source). So the Padgett bike must have been later. But the origin of "Woodsie" is definitively American.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

In the last 40 years, hundreds of people have told me that they themselves "invented the mountain bike," long before I took up cycling, which is the primary reason I don't make that claim. AFAIK, no one has claimed that they invented the downhill off-road time trial before I did.

I have heard an account from a British 'Tracker' bike rider about removing the engine of an old moped and then taking timed turns to race it down a hill to see who could go fastest. Nor can I believe that 17th century Draisienne riders never raced downhill against the clock before roads were built.

I do accept that neither of these two examples were technically bicycles. More importantly, such activities did not evolve to become an category of cycle-sport that continues today.

I would be interested to know whether cyclists today still take part in time trials down 'Repack' style, gravel fire-roads?

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

J

Just to add: the 1953 Woodsie was a Schwinn World diamond frame, but it did have handlebar mounted derailleur gears (source). So the Padgett bike must have been later. But the origin of "Woodsie" is definitively American.

Hi Max and welcome to RetroBike.

Thanks for providing a link to the 1963 Roughstuff Journal article by John Finley-Scott. This used to be available online but was taken down so. it's good to see it again.

With regards to the John Padgett 650b bike, accounts of its age vary from 1960s to the much later date posted with the following photo of 1978:



From other photos I can see that the bike had 650b Super Champion 58 rims who's production time would date the bike to 1970s-early 1980s. So 1978 is probably accurate. Interestingly, this would be around the same time that Tom Ritchey says that Finley-Scott ordered a 650b rough-stuff frame from him.

I know that a specialist rough-stuff bike could be ordered from Jack Taylor. I also understand that Archie Woodward, the Roughstuff Journal editor from 1969-1991, would refuse to publish technical articles. Therefore, it seems unlikely that such bikes were ever reported on? Do you happen to know if adverts for custom-built bikes like the Jack Taylor bike ever appeared in the Journal?

 

[Repack Rider]

I would be interested to know whether cyclists today still take part in time trials down 'Repack' style, gravel fire-roads?

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.

 

[Russell]

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.

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/chasing-history-repack-dh-course-fkt-attempt.html
??

 

[Frankenorange]

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/chasing-history-repack-dh-course-fkt-attempt.html
??

Doesn't count. He is Canadian.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

I set a record time on the Ridgeway trail in England back in December 1986 that has to my knowledge, has never been beaten.

It was a record ten hours to ride the forty miles from Avebury to Streatley. The grass on the trail was so saturated with rain water that the wheels just sank in and the rolling resistance so high you needed to pedal hard to keep moving on the downhill sections. I tried to ride along the water filled ruts made by four wheel drive vehicles and trail motorbikes, but they were often too deep for the pedals to rotate freely. I remember large deep water filed holes, presumably made by the rear wheels of tractors spinning-out when they got stuck in the mud.

I soon worked out that it was easier to cycle through the long grass and undergrowth at the side of the trail. So that's what I did for mile-after-mile out of sheer necessity.

The last four hours were ridden in the dark without using my lights if I could avoid it. Back even the the best D-cell batteries would only last four hours and I had to preserve them for the eight mile ride across London needed to get home that evening.

It was not exactly California and 'Repack', but definitely memorable.

Nowadays, the worst sections are gravelled, motor vehicles are banned in the winter and the drainage and maintenance of the trail is much improved. So even someone pushing their bike the entire forty miles is unlikely to beat my record.

 

[Nabeaquam]

We all know the story of the first mountain bikes:
"Joe Breeze is normally credited with introducing the first purpose-built mountain bike in 1978. Tom Ritchey then went on to make frames for a company called MountainBikes, a partnership between Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly and Tom Ritchey."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... ain_biking

However recent publicity relating to the Latest 650b mountain bikes appears to be rewriting this history by saying that the first Ritchey build mountain bike was made in 1977, and had 650b wheels.

The fact that Ritchey made some of the first 650b wheeled mountain bikes using 650b Nokia Hakkapeliitta tyres is well documented. But the earliest published reports of these bikes that I have seen, date from 1982, five years after the uncorroborated 1977 date.

The use of 650b wheels fitted with narrow tyres was not unheard of in 1970's America. So it would have been quite possible for Ritchey and other NorCal builders to have made traditional 650b bikes. Maybe Cyclo-cross or English style rough-stuff bikes. But it would be highly misleading to describe them as mountain bikes.

Search 1977 and 1979 in this 2013 Ritchey catalogue:
http://velosprint.ua/images/Catalogs/ri ... e-2013.pdf

Some reminiscences from NorCal framebuilder Lennard Zinn
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/07/ ... 50b_252332

http://www.myfaq.co.uk/2012/06/26/tech- ... with-650b/

http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/09/ ... ngs_252520
Photo#3

Ritchey Bikes Time line:
http://www.oldmountainbikes.com/bikes/

No one made the first mountain type bike. It’s been done as long as bicycles have been around. The most natural thing is to build an off road bicycle. Here are several French 1950s jobs with 650B wheels.

The Brit’s sometimes used 650C in the late1940 on their gravel pit racers. Wide bars aren’t new. Front drum brakes and suspension.
In the UK bomb crater racing morphed into cyclo track. Phillips made one, 1950s.
The Dutch also raced dirt, late 1940s-early 50s.

Cyclo cross started in the early 1900s as a way to have fun training on the off season. One village church steeple to another village church steeple. Since there were no rules people started riding cross country, throwing bikes over fences and running.


My friends and I all rode some trails and gravel in the 1950s. We used 26 inch American balooners or Department store rebranded Relaigh three speeds. Usually the balooners as three speeds didn’t become popular where I was living until the mid 1960s. Three speeds or three speeds converted to single speeds were used where I live in the 1970s. There are photos on the net of farm kids riding balooners on rural gravel roads in the 1930s. Early commercially made mountain bikes used balooner geometry or road lugs. Mountain bike geometry improved rapidly after that.