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  • So I accidentally met a mountain bike founder today
  • DT78
    Free Member

    Just arrived in oakhurst California, by sheer fluke the hotel we’ve booked is right next to a bike shop. Thought I’d pop in for a mooch and maybe pick up a souvenir.

    Get talking the chap who turns out to be Rik Garner, one of the first guys to build mountain bikes back in the late 70s. He even shows me the original bike he built that Mike Sinyard of specialised “borrowed” for the design of the stump jumper, the first ever production mountain bike.

    Completely unexpected, and will probably be the highlight of my trip out here!

    So if you are in California and get a chance yosemite bicycles in oakhurst is well worth a visit

    Now I really want to buy a venge….

    csb
    Full Member

    Got any pics of that bike, be interested to see it.

    Chap at work has an Overburys from the 80s I think, hand built in Bristol. Lovely looking thing and I think one of the earlier uk efforts.

    RepackRider
    Free Member


    2retro4u
    Marin County, Cali

    Get talking the chap who turns out to be Rik Garner, one of the first guys to build mountain bikes back in the late 70s. He even shows me the original bike he built that Mike Sinyard of specialised “borrowed” for the design of the stump jumper, the first ever production mountain bike.

    Beg to differ. In 1981 Specialized purchased four bikes from Gary Fisher and me, the basis for the Stumpjumper.

    Talk is cheap. Show me the photos from 1976. If he “invented the mountain bike,” why doesn’t he get any credit for it?

    Read my book, “Fat Tire Flyer,” out in a few weeks in the US, a little later in the UK.

    RepackRider
    Free Member


    2retro4u
    Marin County, Cali

    Also: this. I don’t see Mr. Garner’s name here.

    The Hippie Daredevils Who Were Just Crazy Enough to Invent Mountain Biking

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    This pish again? Mountain biking was alive and well before the 1970s.

    doug_basqueMTB.com
    Full Member

    In the Pyrenees we do a ride, pretty extreme for the exposure along an old waterway cut into the side of the mountain. In the museum at the bottom there are photos from the 20s to the 50s of the workers riding adapted bikes along it to access sections. Would definitely count as mountIn biking, and I don’t mean racing down a dirt track either! No offense Repack Rider, love the stories from you guys but invented mountain biking… maybe in the USA.

    Deveron53
    Free Member

    I rode my Raleigh Chopper on Cannock Chase during the long hot Summer of 1976…
    But I don’t claim to have ‘invented’ mountain biking. I’m with Mr Kelly and his chums. They invented mountain biking as we know it today (even the name: Mountain Bike) It’s all down to the lineage. You can draw a family tree of mountain biking development with those guys as the roots and all the leaves can be seen in our shops today. For example, Geoff Apps had some good stuff but it didn’t develop into the bikes we ride today.

    bikeneil
    Free Member

    I rode my Raleigh Chopper on Cannock Chase during the long hot Summer of 1976…But I don’t claim to have ‘invented’ mountain biking. 

    That’s because you were riding a bike someone else had invented.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

     
    That’s because you were riding a bike someone else had invented don’t have a forthcoming book to publicise.
    [/quote]

    doug_basqueMTB.com
    Full Member

    Pushing up a track and racing down, with beers and pot at the end. Sounds suspiciously like Enduro. I will give you that. I reckon that the guys in the Pyrenees invented All Mountain though.

    large418
    Free Member

    In the late 70’s my mates and I all had “tracker” bikes. Knobbly tyres and cow horn handlebars, looked like mountain bikes. And we copied other peoples bikes, so I am pretty sure mountain bikes were invented elsewhere, and maybe just the name was invented in the US.

    RepackRider
    Free Member


    2retro4u
    Marin County, Cali

    I never claim to have invented the machinery, which as everyone feels they need to point out to me for the last 30 years, is obvious and has been done many times. I never claimed to be the first to ride on a trail.

    We invented a SPORT, not a bike. Form follows function. Once we invented the sport of DOWNHILL RACING AGAINST THE CLOCK, the bikes “invented” themselves. The bikes you ride today can trace their ancestry directly to the bikes we built for our racing

    So, please tell me about all your downhill events that took place before October 21st, 1976 and show me the photos and the results with the dates, because I certainly can do so.

    epicyclo
    Full Member

    Repack Rider – Member
    …We invented a SPORT, not a bike. Form follows function. Once we invented the sport of DOWNHILL RACING AGAINST THE CLOCK, the bikes “invented” themselves. The bikes you ride today can trace their ancestry directly to the bikes we built for our racing…

    I think that’s a fair assessment.

    Riding in the mountains aka “pass-storming” was been popular with British riders from the start or at least the 1890s, and men like Vernon Blake were building bikes with 26″ tyres of 2″ section for riding in the mountains in 1930.

    (The chain is supposed to look like that)

    In any case if the UK had “invented” mtbing as a sport, we would have been daft enough to do it only uphill, and there would have been some chap in a blazer to disqualify you if you rode downhill. 🙂

    fasternotfatter
    Free Member

    Repack is where I thought it all started?

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    Doods, please !!

    Clearly, I started this shit off in about ’71. Me and my neighbour (Martin, since equal credit is due) used to race down our hill, over a jump, u-turn and then back up – ENDURO? **** yeah !. Against the clock, baby !!
    (Now & then there was a tricycle involved, deal with that in your own ways 8) )

    The only obvious difference between this and the current scene is the dearth of German automobiles

    doug_basqueMTB.com
    Full Member

    If the Americans invented DH, how come we keep beating them at it? 😉

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    doug, we like to think the English invented footy 😳

    RepackRider
    Free Member


    2retro4u
    Marin County, Cali

    Photo from the signing event. The bike is mine, built for me in 1978 by the gentleman second from left, Joe Breeze. This was the first bike built specifically for this new sport, not cobbled together from something else. The two other gentlemen are Tom Ritchey and Gary Fisher.

    Since all of you beat me to this idea, please show me the hand-made off-road bikes built for downhill racing before this one was.

    chip
    Free Member

    So down hill racing was invented a repack , Maybe.
    What I do can only be called mountainbiking because I do it on a mountain bike.
    I don’t think anyone can claim to have invented mountainbiking or the mountainbike as I am sure people have rode bikes on mountains or even modified or built a bike for specific off road environments long before the phrase mountainbike was ever coined.

    project
    Free Member

    In the past i also met Jeremy Torr, Clive Powell, and a chap who was a student teacher, who started a bike mag, i think its still going .

    aa
    Free Member

    Is it fair to say that if it weren’t for Charlie and his peers we wouldn’t be on this forum right now arguing that some bloke rode his penny farthing on gravel (the original gravel racer)and on dirt so the Americans couldn’t have possibly invented mountain biking??

    The lineage is quite clear.

    RepackRider
    Free Member


    2retro4u
    Marin County, Cali

    So down hill racing was invented a repack , Maybe.
    What I do can only be called mountainbiking because I do it on a mountain bike.

    Of course. And the name of your bike comes from the name of the company that Gary Fisher and I started in a rented garage in 1979. We called the company “MountainBikes,” and I challenge you to find a prior reference to any bicycle that uses that term.

    I don’t think anyone can claim to have invented mountainbiking or the mountainbike as I am sure people have rode bikes on mountains or even modified or built a bike for specific off road environments long before the phrase mountainbike was even coined.

    You may be “sure of” something you didn’t see, but that doesn’t make it real. I took part in the activities I talk about, which is a huge difference from what you conjecture.

    Talk is cheap. Pix or it didn’t happen.

    chip
    Free Member

    Charlie Kelly’s bike is to modern downhill bikes what vernon blakes is to his.

    Just another step in the evolution of the bicycle.

    chip
    Free Member

    Ah so you invented the term mountainbike.

    That I can believe.

    ampthill
    Full Member

    Ah so you invented the term mountainbike.

    I think thats clear

    We invented a SPORT, not a bike. Form follows function. Once we invented the sport of DOWNHILL RACING AGAINST THE CLOCK, the bikes “invented” themselves. The bikes you ride today can trace their ancestry directly to the bikes we built for our racing

    chip
    Free Member

    From wiki
    The Rough Stuff Fellowship was established in 1955 by off-road cyclists in the United Kingdom.[3] In Oregon, one Chemeketan club member, D. Gwynn, built a rough terrain trail bicycle in 1966. He named it a “mountain bicycle” for its intended place of use. This may be the first use of that name.[4]

    nickc
    Full Member

    oops 😀

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    Mountain Bicycle, see. Not Mountain Bike. We don’t call it Mountain Bicycling so poor Mr Gwynn gets no credit.

    Superficial
    Free Member

    We don’t call it Mountain Bicycling

    I might start calling it that. It sounds like that may have been the first usage and I like the idea that the British invented it, not some stoner hippies in the states.

    I once met a walker when I was out riding in the Lakes. He gave me a pamphlet about some club that existed since the early 1900s IIRC where they tried to ride bikes over mountain passes. There were some black-and-white photos of people (in blazers!) riding old clunky bikes over rocks, I think in nepal. Wish I still had the information.

    My Grandfather was part of some GB army unit in WW2 that used bikes to cover ground, both on and off road.

    Perhaps the Americans can lay claim to developing the first specifically-designed ‘mountain’ bikes bicycles.

    B.A.Nana
    Free Member

    Anyone whose ever played with crossing a modern 26″ wheel mtb with an old USA beach cruiser bike will immediately have experienced the connections. Charlie Kelly and his peers have never claimed to have been the first to ride bikes off road, but the basics of the modern mtb sport/leisure pursuit and the bikes origins clearly come from that base point of converting beach cruiser bikes for racing downhills. They raced them downhills against the clock, local people started playing with the basic beach cruiser bike design and it took off. CX biking was around and still is, but the CX bike design hasn’t much lineage with mtb (more with road biking) apart from maybe some cross over in recent years parts development. That’s my take on it anyway, other views may differ.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    I think, wherever else you stand on it, you probably agree that modern mountain biking what we do started in Marin- it’s hard to come up with any history of modern mountain biking that doesn’t go “First there was the Breezer, then there was the Stumpy, and we saw that it was good”. Maybe it would have started somewhere else instead given time, but it didn’t. I don’t know if who raced first or who did what first matters at all, it’s hard to believe that early unnamed offroaders never competed.

    How about, Joe, Charlie et al invented the mountain bike industry.

    I think the actual mountain bike wasn’t invented til some time in the 90s though, before that we were fannying around on hybrids.

    chip
    Free Member

    Rik garner,

    Y osemite Bicycle Shop opened in January 2001 by Rick Garner in Oakhurst, CA, just south of Yosemite National Park. I have been coming to Bass Lake and the Sierra Nevada Foothills and mountains for most of my life, enjoying the hiking, cycling, swimming, fishing, horseback riding and other activities available here. I finally decided it was time to make my home here.

    I have been in the bicycle business since 1972, when my brother Mike and I opened Garner’s Pro Bike Shop in Redwood City, Ca. (San Francisco Bay Area). In 1973, I started building bicycle frames and in 1978, I started building all terrain bikes (later to be called mountain bikes). We started the Sequoia Cycling Club a year later and promoted many bike races. In 1974, My brother and I were among the very first Specialized bicycle dealers in the world and were involved in the founding of Specialized Bicycle Components Co. and helped Mike Sinyard develop the first production mountain bike in the world (the Stumpjumper). In 1975-1976, I was the district representative for the U.S. Cycling Federation. In 1975, when I promoted the California State Championships that I went to Caltrans for a moving road closure permit for the road race championships. It was a surprise to them because they had never issued one to a bike race before even though bike races had been held in the state long before I started promoting them. The time trial course that I chose that year near Sierraville, Ca. is still being used today for the state championships.

    In the spring of 1976, I was approached by the San Francisco Columbus Day Celebration Committee who were interested in holding an international caliber bicycle race to take place in September as part of the Columbus Day festivities. I agreed to hold the event, which I named the Giro Di San Francisco. It was at this event that a prominent racer, Bob Lemond brought his 15 year old son Greg to the sign in table and asked if I could issue him a racing license so he could race. It was there that I issued Greg Lemond his first racing license . Greg finished third that day and was awarded a trophy that stood as tall as he did by Mayor Mosconi In 1977, I moved the race to the North Beach area of San Francisco with the first ever climb up Lombard Street ! It was during this race, that Greg Lemond passed the lead motorcycle up that hill and went on to win the event. It was Dianne Feinstein that awarded him his trophy that year.

    Upon arriving here in the gateway to beautiful Yosemite National Park, I met the local road and mountain bike riders including John Fisher, the owner of the previous bicycle shop in Oakhurst. He was instrumental in showing me the local trails and introducing me to the professional riders in the area. Since most of the trails up here are poorly marked, it was nice learning where all the best routes are and how to ride them. His skill level was remarkable which led him to many local and national mountain bike races. I know that I am a much better rider because of what John has taught me and thank him immensely for his efforts. John had a skiing accident in 2006 which has left him paralyzed and unable to ride a bicycle. We all miss him out there on the trails but our thoughts are always with him.

    In 2002, my brother Mike died of a heart attack. I returned to Redwood City to run the store until I could find a buyer for Garner’s Pro Bicycle Shop. During this time my store in Oakhurst was being run my manager, Mike Morris. I was able to find a buyer for the my brother’s store. Bob Weger, an experienced bike shop manager took over the shop and changed the name to Goride Bicycles. He has carried on the superior service tradition of three decades of Garner’s Pro Bikes and is now one of the top Specialized dealerships in the country. http://www.goridebicycles.com

    epicyclo
    Full Member

    Longwinded, but in support of Repack:

    Mountainbiking is a dropped ball of the British cycle sport. It’s not that it didn’t have plenty opportunities to develop it. Sport in the UK was too rule bound and authoritarian to be innovative. (Look at the history of road racing.)

    The British manufacturers were no better – they showed no interest in developing anything like a mountainbike before becoming copycats of the USA mtb.

    This was despite repeated efforts by lone visionaries to interest the trade, and the mountain activities of UK cyclists (some incredible feats). Yet they built specially sturdy bikes for colonial use that could have served the purpose with small modification.

    Right from the start there has been plenty mountain riding, plus the odd race. If you look at the really early stuff, their ordinary riding surfaces were stuff we would call mtb territory these days, and any ride through the Highlands or Wales was definitely mountain biking by modern standards. 🙂

    The RSF (of which I am a member) could have started the ball rolling, but it actively discouraged discussion of technical innovation, taking the attitude that it was about the cycling not the bike.

    It’s silly not to credit Repack and his friends with the term mountainbike and the invention of the sport because I do not recall hearing it before that period, and there is no mention I have found of it in print. We owe the pleasure we get out of our sport to what they started.

    I have about 10 years worth of bound copies of the RSF journals from 1955, so if anyone knows of a mention of technical improvements and can suggest an approximate date I can check it out and post it up.

    I also have a pretty comprehensive library of bound bicycle magazines starting from 1879, plus books from the same period, so I can check that too. (I don’t claim to remember everything in them 🙂 ).

    The closest I have found is the picture of Vernon Blake’s bike in 1930. Maybe if he hadn’t died just after building that, things would have been different. BTW the first time a modern fatbike was proposed was around that time too.

    Oops – I think I may have just outed myself as a bike geek 🙂

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    again 😀

    chip
    Free Member

    You look at vernon blakes bike and the 81 stumpy based on Kelly/fisher bikes they are uncannily similar in appearance considering they are 50 years apart.

    chip
    Free Member


    epicyclo
    Full Member

    chip – Member
    You look at vernon blakes bike and the 81 stumpy based on Kelly/fisher bikes they are uncannily similar in appearance considering they are 50 years apart.

    Blake’s bike got a lot of publicity in the press at the time, so there was plenty of opportunity to capitalise on it. But nothing happened, no production of it, no sport based around its function.

    Yet 2″ tyres had been in reasonably common production barely 20 years earlier, and many old timers were complaining about the lack of them. There was a 2″ tyre available but it was for yet another version of the 26″ rim used on delivery bikes (571mm?). So the opportunity was there for UK manufacturers to at least try it.

    DT78
    Free Member

    Oo didn’t mean to kick anything off. Rik said he was one of several frame builders in the area at that time he never claimed to be the “one” who invented mountain bike. He said the hand built bike he showed me was basically copied into the first production bike, the stumpy. I must say it did look remarkably similar even down to the colour. He also had an original mark 1 stumpy which was lovely. I asked him if he had any kick back for the design and he said he had.

    He couldn’t speak more highly of specialised bikes and the level of engineering in their bikes. Still not sure they are worth the premium over other brands though. he would say good things as a dealer!

    I should have time tomorrow to pop in and ask for a few photos. If I’m over here for work again they do guide tours and uplifts which look pretty awesome.

    DT78
    Free Member

    Btw really nice to see another founder on here!

    Sadly I’m heading back on Thursday but would have loved to have popped by. I’ll be buying the book.

    Flash read your link, don’t see any mention of specialised and the stumpy which I thought was credited as the first mass produced mtb?

    RepackRider
    Free Member


    2retro4u
    Marin County, Cali

    The Rough Stuff Fellowship was established in 1955 by off-road cyclists in the United Kingdom.

    Gary Fisher and I were RSF members. The RSF was not interested in competition, mad downhills or technical innovation. They did nothing to advance the sport.

    In Oregon, one Chemeketan club member, D. Gwynn, built a rough terrain trail bicycle in 1966. He named it a “mountain bicycle” for its intended place of use. This may be the first use of that name.

    Allow me to point out that building a bicycle for oneself does not put other people on them. Apparently he stopped with one. We didn’t.

    My late friend John Finley Scott (PhD) built what would have passed for a mountain bike, and he did it in 1953. He called it a “Woodsie Bike.” He was an initial investor in Gary Fisher and myself, and even though he beat us to the idea by 20 years, once again, there was only one bike, and he did not claim to have invented the sport.

    Racing is what moved our sport forward, and one bike is not going to start a race. Two bikes will.

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