Vote for Geoff Apps – Mountain Bike Hall of Fame 2011

He invented the 29er you know.

Geoff Apps did indeed design a 29er bicycle back in 1981. This first bike still exists. He also sent some of the Finnish snow tyres to Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly, and Tom Ritchey built some frames for them. The story is that the supply of was poor because the Russian army bought most of them so the US pioneers had no choice but to use the smaller 26″ tyres. However the idea of big wheeled bikes stuck in Gary Fishers mind and led him asking WTB to design some 29er Nano-raptors for him. The rest, as they say, is history.

Back in the early years Apps corresponded with the likes of Fisher, Breeze and Kelly, ideas and components where exchanged. Apart from 29er and 650B tyres, the Americans saw Geoff’s uncanny ability to preempt future developments. As early as 1980 his Cleland Cross-Country Cycles included amongst other things:- upright frame geometry, twist grip gears, low pressure tyres on narrow rims, wide bottom brackets, short wheel basses, sloping top tubes, high bottom brackets etc. Just like many good modern bikes.

Their is a consensus amongst the US pioneers that Geoff deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Geoff Apps may not be famous, but the recognition of his contribution to mountain biking is well overdue.

http://www.completesite.com/mbhof/page.cfm?pageid=7&categoryid=4&memberid=209

http://g-tedproductions.blogspot.com/p/beginnings-of-modern-29er-history.html

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=105297&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=mtbhof&start=0

There’s a big article about him in Privateer 3

He is indeed a true pioneer of MTB design. He was fairly well-known in the early days of MTB, but seems less so now, hopefully that will change. A Wendover local too, no wonder his bikes were made so mud-proof.

He’s working with Ragley to get a full bike to market, I think I read in that Privateer article?

There’s no doubt Apps should be recognised. Maybe we should also be hitting our MPs so he gets a UK recognition like MBE or such like. Sir Geoff has a nice ring to it. 🙂

The UK dropped the ball on mountain bikes at least twice previously before the Apps era.

The bikes used in Australia for transcontinental rides on dirt tracks in the 1900s were very similar to a modern rigid dropbar 29er singlespeed. They had fat tyres (2″) and not much different in weight at about 25lbs. These bikes were mainly made in the UK, but they dropped from existence within the next 15-20 years. I have seen magazine articles in the late 1920s bemoaning the lack of 2″ tyres for large wheels anymore, so there was an unsatisfied demand. Just think we could have been riding 29ers for the last 100 years 🙂

IMO the other occasion was due to the RSF policy of eschewing technical discussion. The Rough Stuff Fellowship was formed in 1955 to promote riding offroad. If there had been a technical aspect to the club, we may have seen pressure on the cycle manufacturers to widen wheels, improve brakes etc. It would have been so easy – most towns had at least one cycle shop with a frame builder. I know when I was trying to build a bike for the mountains in the 60s, the strongest rims I could get were 27″ stainless steel Dunlops about 22mm wide or by going to 28″ up to 28mm wide. However the fattest tyres I could find were approx 38mm in those days. And as for suitable brakes, the less said the better. I wasn’t the only one riding the single tracks in the mountains, so there was a market.

Our mountain bike community owes a lot to Geoff Apps as an unrecognised pioneer, so let’s get the pressure on for recognition.

Epicyclo’s comments demonstrate the magnitude of Apps’ achievement. Many people cycled off-road in the UK but apart from Apps no-one created a fully functional off-road bicycle. I can still take my 1983 Cleland along on the Sunday XC run and expect to keep up, though on hills its 36lbs of weight can be a problem. When Apps couldn’t find components in Britain he looked abroad and this wasn’t at all easy in the days before the internet. How did he go about writing letters to a Finish company asking for them to send him their 2″ snow tyres? When he couldn’t find suitable bicycle brakes he looked at French moped brakes and found the solution there. This went on for years until he had put together a complete bike. He even scoured the country for suitable frame builders as most could not or would not produce his designs. Most of the prototypes were built in Liverpool by one of Harry Quinn’s frame builders. He never compromised, as an expert Trials motorbike rider he knew how a good off-road bike should handle and did not rest until he had reproduced this in a bicycle. That is why the geometry of his bikes virtually identical to modern MTBs, what worked then works now.

Many others tried to build specialist off-road bikes and some were fairly good but only Apps produced a machine that wasn’t just as good as the early US mountain bikes, it was far better in most respects. But in 1984, just as US mountain bikes arrived in Britain’s bike shops, cycling or distributor Ron Kitching withdrew Apps credit. Apps’ company Cleland Cycles was out of business and Apps lost all of the savings that he had used to start Europe’s first specialist off-road bicycle manufacturer.

Even then he didn’t give up, he carried on designing his own bikes whilst promoting the new sport of ‘Mountain Biking’. It cant of been easy promoting other peoples bikes when he knew that his designs were more evolved. But above all he loved to ride off-road, and it was better that people rode on bikes unsuited to the muddy and wet English conditions, than not at all.

I always presumed he was in the MBHoF! I think I’ve got an old book by him some where

David Wrath-Sharman as well is associated with Geoff Apps. http://www.63xc.com/dws/hubbrake.htm

Like myself, “David Wrath-Sharman bought one of Geoff Apps’ Cleland Aventura bikes. He was very impressed by its design and off-road capabilities. He was less than impressed by the build quality, after all it was made from a collection of motorbike, touring-bike, BMX, and moped parts that were never intended to be used on an off-road bicycle. David immediately set about using his engineering skills to improve the bike he had bought. After Cleland cycles went out of business David had enough people asking him to improve or repair their bikes that he eventually started to make Cleland inspired machines to order under the Highpath Engineering brand. If David couldn’t source high quality components he simply designed and made his own, Drum brakes, bottom bracket bearings, brake levers, handlebars, suspension systems, you name it! He also improved the frame design and later designed and built his own low step-over frame.

David was to the British scene what Charlie Cunningham was to the American riders, a superb design engineer ready to innovate and push boundaries. But unlike Apps, Wrath-Sharman didn’t have a collaborative relationship with the US mountain bike pioneers and so his work less of an impact on the American scene.

After all, the main reason why Apps is not in the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame already is that the voting is so US centered.

did he design a full suspension bike? i think it was on this forum that someone posted a picture of a far out looking bike (it had chains going up to the fork i think) it looked pretty amazing. :-)EDIT just found the bike here http://www.toptrail.co.uk/ would love to have a go on it 😀 and it is a highpath designed bike 😀 i’ll definitely vote for him.

David Wrath-Sharman “I don’t have much experience with disk brakes, but I gather that pads wear out quickly. Well, the hub brake on my personal bike has probably done 20,000 miles, and I’m just getting round to replacing the shoes.”

20,000 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want some.

The only full suspension bike designed and built By David Wrath-Sharman that I know of is a rucumbent he built for himself. He did design a front suspension machine in 1989/90 called the SpringLite. He built the TopTrail prototype that was designed in colaboration with automative suspension designer Adrian Griffiths. The idea of taking the chain up the seattube and around a high pivot point and then down to the freewheel was featured on a bike that I designed and discussed with David in 1992/3.

Also my 1988 Highpath made Cleland is still using its original rear brake shoes though the front ones wore out about 3 years ago. I don’t know how many off-road miles it has done but I must have worn out at least ten sets of tyres since new.

ah cheers mudrider. full sus recumbent 😯 😀 (would love to have a go on that 😀

Here’s a video of Geoff Apps riding near in the woods where he developed his Cleland Cross Country Cycles.

The “off-piste” riding has always been a feature of rides led by Geoff though I don’t think that it has ever been filmed before. Unlike the video these woods are normally wet and muddy which makes things much more tricky. Hence the Cleland’s bash-plate, low-pressure studded tyres and enclosed hub brakes.

Another tradition is that the rides carry on after dark and end with a downhill. The down hill shown in the video is always interesting in the dark as the nodules of flint and roots are difficult to spot amongst the leaves. Even more so in the old days with just a 3 volt EverReady cyclelight to guide the way. Though you could always follow the Roughstuff Fellowship tradition, and walk these sections.

I had a part in creating the first prototype Cleland way back around 79/80.
I was just starting out in the bike trade and also working for a small engineering company in Amersham.
Geoff came to us and asked us to build this rather unusual bike.

Nick Crane rode one of his bikes up (i think) Snowdon, It was on Blue Peter when i was a lad 🙂

Im sure the first full suss bike was the Moulton, well 20″ wheel full suss MTB 😀

I remember that ‘riding after dark’ on the Wendover Bash and Geoff encouraging me not to use my (pathetic) front light as “it’ll ruin your night vision”. Fortunately I was on a touring bike with 25c tyres so slippery roots under leaves, in the dark, downhill and on unfamiliar trails was no problem at all.

Hi Zog,

This should bring back memories:

http://clelandcycles.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/bicycle-times.jpg

Coastkid, the October 1981 Snowdon ride of Nick Crane was using a later 1980 prototype that still exists. It was probably the first time that anyone rode up a British mountain though I didn’t know about the Blue Peter report. I would love to see that film if it survives.

Try this link for a contemporary report by Nick Crane:

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=106093&g2_GALLERYSID=f65d3cf71507a6ceb868e675309804ac

Its a PDF file but you will need to scroll down to find it.

Big Ted wrote:
“I remember that ‘riding after dark’ on the Wendover Bash and Geoff encouraging me not to use my (pathetic) front light as “it’ll ruin your night vision”. Fortunately I was on a touring bike with 25c tyres so slippery roots under leaves, in the dark, downhill and on unfamiliar trails was no problem at all.”

You’re a braver man than me. If I had to ride that on a road bike in the dark I would go very slowly indeed”

I loved this – British industry at its best, following the motorcyle industry in refusing to recognise a new era (or refusing to spend money on it).

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42540&start=165

Thanks for posting that PDF Link by Nick Crane, 🙂
Geoff Lives in the Scottish Borders, yesterday he contacted me via my blog regaurding WW2 stuff, and also as he is interested to ride my Pugsley :-),
A chance to meet a cycling legend, and ride one of his own bikes!, 🙂

wow, we had a guy riding one of those clelands join us for a few weekends up woburn last year,

i tried looking for info on his bike after hearing his wild and what sound unlikey stories, he is local to bucks !,

i have to confess i drew a blank, but after reading this i feel somewhat stupid, I’ve never heard of Geoff Apps which may sound reasonable until you find out:

i was born i Weston Turville, 2 miles from Wendover,

i rode up the woods with all my buddys on bmx’s from Wendover,

i went to school in Wendover until 1984 when i started working,

I attended the first Wendover bash in 1984 as a guest with Aylesbury CC,

hehe, god i’m 43 next week, i can’t remember squat from the 80’s , i think its a mental block to save me from images of new romantics and shite music.

top post OP thanks

just came across a bog that featured Cleland – wondered if it had been discussed on here and so they have!

would make a nice subject / story for the magazine perhaps?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbWuIHESe5M&feature=player_embedded[/video]

It would be really very very nice if Geoff got the recognition he deserves. Very nice indeed. He does not ‘do’ racing bikes (a la California) but there is very definitely room for what his bikes do, which is to go from A to B quietly, efficiently, and in a refined manner. And, as a bonus, they require little or no maintenance. Imagine that, my friends, to get back from a ride, wet, hungry and cold; wondering which to do first, wash the bike/get changed/cook food. Part of that problem is now solved as the bike can go straight in the shed.

coastkid – Member
…Geoff Lives in the Scottish Borders, yesterday he contacted me via my blog regaurding WW2 stuff, and also as he is interested to ride my Pugsley…

If he wants to try a fatbike with drum brakes, send him up here. 🙂

Im meeting up with Geoff to ride some trails in 2 weeks, be great to try his bike :-), will do some film of it and a blog post,
I can see him building a fatty next 😉 😀

rootes1 – Member

just came across a blog that featured Cleland – wondered if it had been discussed on here and so they have!

would make a nice subject / story for the magazine perhaps?

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t recall Geoff Apps even getting a mention in Singletrack magazine? Issue 73 had an article on The 650B wheel size and an I interview with Wes Williams about the origins of 700C mountain bike wheels. But no mention of Apps? That’s the equivalent of missing Neil Armstrong out of stories about Moon landings. Both articles refer to there being some big wheeled US bikes built in the 1980s. And “high volume, 700C off-road tyres from Europe called Hakkapeliittas”, are mentioned. But the tale of how large diameter fat snow tyres from Finland got into the hands of so many pioneering Californian mountain bike builders is omitted. As is the fact that the two of these pioneers were also main instigators in the development of the first 29er tyres in 1999, the WTB 700C Nanoraptors.
Nor do they mention that Apps built his own 650x54B bikes from 1979 and 700x47C from 1981.

there was a great article in Privateer about Apps – issue 3.