yeti-man":2ix8zfyi said:
With all respect, what did we get from Geoff Apps?
I got one of his Cleland bikes and nearly 30 years of enjoyment riding it.
However, just how influential Geoff Apps' ideas have been on the development of mainstream mountain bike design is difficult to prove.
Many ideas now commonplace on modern mountain bikes can be found on early Apps' designs. However it cannot usually be proved that others copied his designs or were influenced by them. Maybe these ideas independently realised by others simply because they were good ideas.
One Apps idea that can be linked to today's bikes is that of using big wheels. He used 650b x 2" tyres on most of his bikes from 1979 onwards, and 700c in 1981. About this time he sent the tyres he used to Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly in the US and Tom Ritchey and other built bikes around these tyres. And their success in the races proved the efficacy of using bigger wheels. However the Russian Army apparently bought up most of these Finnish tyres making the mass production of bikes using these wheel sizes impossible. And so the opportunity for mountain bikes to develop with larger wheels was lost. Until that was, when Gary Fisher, remembering the race successes of these larger wheel bikes, started making mass produced 700c wheeled bikes in 1993.
Like them or loath them, 29ers link back to Apps who he still owns a 700c Cleland that was made in 1981.
GEOFF APPS’ INNOVATION TIMELINE:
1964 - 8: Apps’s first cross-country bicycle designs were based on a Raleigh Explorer frame. The following decade was spent modifying a wide variety of available bicycle components in order to identify and evaluate the best characteristics for off-road use.
1979: Apps finally completes his first 650B ‘Range Rider’ cross-country prototype around a custom-built frame and all new parts. Features included 2-inch wide low-pressure tyres on narrow 650B rims, a steep frame angles, a sloping top tube, Alpine Derailleur gears, skate plate, hub brakes and full-length mudguards. (Compared to the Marin bikes, Apps’s bikes are capable all-weather bikes, intended to cope as far as possible with mud, snow and ice).
1980: Builds his first short-wheelbase 650B ‘Aventura’
1981: Builds his first 700c (29er) ‘Range Rider’
1982: Apps set up Cleland Cycles Ltd, the first European mountain bike maker, to manufacture and market his cross-country cycles. In addition, he set up the ‘Cross-Country Cycling Club’ to promote recreational off-road cycling across the UK.
1984: Cleland Cycles ceased trading due to cash flow problems. Apps also organised the ‘Wendover Bash’ – the first national level Observed Trials event in the UK, which continued annually until 1989.
1985: Builds the ‘Dingbat’ - A 24” wheeled trials-specific model, similar in style to modern Dirt/Jump bikes, fitted with Apps’s twist-grip gear shifter and a 2.5” rear tyre.
1987: Builds the ‘Clelandale’ – an extremely lightweight touring Cleland utilising a ‘Beast of the East’ Cannondale frame and 650A wheels.
1989: Moves to Scotland to concentrate on journalism, and take things a bit steadier.
2006: The bug bites again; Apps builds the ‘Aventura II’, a 700C lightweight machine, taking advantage of the availability of Shimano 8-speed Nexus hub gears and roller brakes.
2009: At last Apps is able, due to the current availability of suitable components, to build the machine he wanted to create in the ‘70’s. The ‘AventuraTT’ features 29” X 2.5” wheels, small strong frame, short-reach handlebars, high centre of gravity, Shimano Nexus 8-speed hub gears, roller brakes, hub dynamo, full-length 70mm mudguards, and all the other Cleland features, which have been refined over the years.
2011: ‘The Monster’ is in construction – a development of the AventuraTT, with 31” X 2.75” tyres.
