45th Anniversary coming up this month
 

On October 21, 1976 I agreed to help a few friends settle an argument as to who was the fastest downhill rider on our modified "klunker" bikes. We had decided that a time trial was the way to make it as fair as possible. I worked out a timing system with a couple of clocks. We had that race on a steep two-mile section of fire road that descended 1300 feet (14% average grade) that we called "Repack"

There is a reason they play the other 161 baseball games after the first one of the season. If you lost that first game, you want to play another that you might win. The same held true for our downhill race. The losers wanted another shot at the winner. Five days later we were back on that hill for another race, and four days later, for another. Soon, riders we had never heard of started showing up to race.

For a couple of years the downhill race took over the lives of a couple of dozen bicycle hobbyists, myself included. I bought the first generation of digital stopwatches to help time the racer. I promoted the race. Eventually I asked my friend Joe Breeze to build me a bike specifically for the race.

Gary Fisher, the course record holder, asked Tom Ritchey to build a similar bike. Tom liked the project and built a few more. He consigned them to Gary, who asked me to help sell these new bikes. We rented a garage to build bikes in and came up with the grandiose name for our company: MountainBikes

So rad!


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I knew all this from real time but never tire of rereading the stories.

Very cool.

Really great story, thanks for sharing


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I don’t know it ‘real-time’ but I agree - it’s amazing to read these stories not from someone who happened to be around or nearby or know a friend of a friend, but one of the inventors of mountain bikes!! Very cool.

The thought of shooting down Cascade Canyon aka Repack on coaster brakes is just crazy. What a scene it must of been. Thank you for keeping the history.

I was a motorcyclist with modest off-road skills going back to the late 1960s. I had one of the first Yamaha DT-1 enduros I bought in 1968 so when I heard rumors about the growing popularity of "mountain bikes" in 1988 I knew I wanted to try one. I had a week vacation in Steamboat Springs in July where I rented a Scott mountain bike and pedaled off to find some interesting single track. I soon met a local HS boy riding a similar bike and he showed me his favorite local paths. I was hooked. When I got back to San Diego I demoed as many mountain bikes as I could and bought a Bridgestone MB-3 from Laffen's Bike Shop. I finally sold the bike a couple of years ago because I had 11 bikes including a FS Marin Rift Zone but I still wonder if I should have kept it as my urban assault bike." :)

Got any photographs laying around from that period?

Great Story, Nice Folks
 

A few years back my kids school in Marin organized a fundraiser/mountain bike ride and Gary Fisher showed up to lead it. I was blown away that a person I only knew as a brand on a bike was so nice and kind to help a local school.

That’s living history.

I just missed the start of all this, having moved on from my Evil Knievel backyard ramp jumping days and brief foray into racing and oogling race bikes. Not sure when I first saw a klunker or mtb here n the east coast, sometime in the late 80s.

Thank for for the stories and the history-keeping.

See the Rolling Dinosaur Archive.

Any events big or small planned for the coming 45t anniversary?

Amazing....can't thank you all enough.

What a cool slice of local history.

I go to the place that changed my life. Most years there are others there also.