I got a telephone call from a producer at a San Francisco television station. He had heard about these crazy hippies in Marin County who raced downhill on cobbled-together machinery made from 40 year old junk bikes of the sort you could have for the price of a couple of beers.He asked me whether I would promote a race for his film crew.

When the gang heard that there would be a film crew there, everybody showed up to race. the resulting video became the first-ever video of this new way of using bicycles.

The event took place on January 20, 1979, 40 years ago this Sunday.

My roommate and future business partner Gary Fisher had a wonderful and prescient response to the simple question, “How long has this been going on?”

(Paraphrasing) “It’s been going on as long as people have been riding bicycles, but for us just the last five years. In that time it has come a long way, and it is GOING a long way.”

Tom Ritchey showed up to see what the fuss was all about. He borrowed a clunker and rode a very creditable time. A few months later he would build his first mountain bike at the request of Gary Fisher.

It’s unfortunate that YouTube saw fit to add a disgusting sound track to obscure any copyright problems with the Dave Clark Five and Steve Miller Band soundtrack in the original version.

It’s hard to understand Jim Adler’s response to the question, “So it’s just like cross country skiing then?”

“Yeah, but when you fall down, you don’t get snow in your boots.”

Also: “Clunking is dusty in the Sommer (long pause) and muddy in the winter.”

Here it is on YouTube.

Sgt Pepper taught the band to play?

It was 40 years ago this week
Sgt Pepper rode a mountain… beek?

Where is Scotroutes with his video of mountain bikes many years before this?

Where is Scotroutes with his video of mountain bikes many years before this?

Downhill mtb racing?

Has repack changed from claiming he invented mountain bikes to a more accurate one of the first to codify dh mtb racing?

Nice video, thanks

Bit sad if you were still hippies in 1979 tbh

No doubt Charlie will get his usual kicking on here, but to be fair to the fellas from across the pond –

1. That video looks a lot more like what most of us do on a bike today, than the RSF guys carrying road bikes over hills.

2. Gary Fisher, when asked when it started by the reporter, acknowledged that he didn’t really know. Probably a hundred years ago when bikes were invented.

I suspect he may have answered a little less humbly a few years later though..

Nice vid. Looks like really good times were had.

Enjoyed that Repack, thanks.

Has repack changed from claiming he invented mountain bikes to a more accurate one of the first to codify dh mtb racing?

The lineage of the mountainbike industry has its roots with Fisher, Kelly and crew. Not the RSF or any youth who fitted cownhorns.

bedmaker
No doubt Charlie will get his usual kicking on here…

Indeed.

I won’t do my usual diatribe on the failure of the British bike industry to encourage offroad riding, but one thing for sure, if it wasn’t for Charlie and his mates, we’d still be getting offered bikes like these for offroad activities.

It would be a nice bike for gravel and RSF though

Brilliant! 🙂

Bit sad if you were still hippies in 1979 tbh

It’d be cool to be a hippy in Marin County now, let alone 40 years ago.

Bit sad if you were still hippies in 1979 tbh

Whereas knocking out a petty diss on an online forum in 2019 is pretty avant garde, yeah? 😉

Has repack changed from claiming he invented mountain bikes to a more accurate one of the first to codify dh mtb racing?

He has never claimed to have invented them. He has posted the history behind where the bikes and sport most know today originated from on a more industrial bases.

It’d be cool to be a hippy in Marin County now, let alone 40 years ago.

We stayed in a motel at Stinson Beach owner by an ex-hippie. He was probably one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. He knew a couple of the Repack guys and pulled out his Gary Fisher Mt Tam (late eighties vintage I think) and he proceeded to say how Garyhad given him the bike new. We chatted about MTB’s for a while and he said he was excited to try and get up Mt Tam again for the first time in many years. He came back to us the next day so excited to tell me that he’d made it up. He was so chuffed!
He explained he’d been a hippy in the 70’s but then got into stocks and shares or something – he was driving an 80’s Cadillac which did 8mpg – mint condition.

If you’ve been MTBing for years and know a bit of the history then a visit to Marin county is essential one day. Just seeing the signs for the classic Marin Bikes names made me glad I went – we went to Muirwoods/Stinson Beach etc.

Has repack changed from claiming he invented mountain bikes to a more accurate one of the first to codify dh mtb racing?

FFS, give it a rest.

Whereas knocking out a petty diss on an online forum in 2019 is pretty avant garde, yeah? 😉

Probably more zeitgeist than avant garde, which would still be better than anachronistic 😉

Blimey i hadn’t realised that it was time for Repacks annual I invented the wheel post!

The lineage of the mountainbike industry has its roots with Fisher, Kelly and crew. Not the RSF or any youth who fitted cownhorns.

brant talks sense.

90% on here talk bollocks.

The pettiness from some on here never ceases to amaze me.

Nice work Charlie, how you guys ever got down Repack in about 4 mins is beyond me. I couldn’t get even close!

Drac he certainly did claim exactly that

Is there anything you’re not an expert on TJ? I think a celebrity deathmatch with MWS and yourself is in order, to decide the ONE TRUE PEOPLES CHAMPION! 🙂

Cheers Charlie. Keep coming back here 👍 Despite the negative vibes

Does this happen every year, or is it more frequent than that?

90% on here talk bollocks.

That’s rather generous of you Ton, I’d have put it a bit higher 🙂

This is great. I like how taking the truck uplift was the default – we’ve come full circle! 😉

It’s like Groundhog Day 😀

Enjoyed that – thanks for posting!!

Cheers Charlie. Keep coming back here 👍 Despite the negative vibes

This times loads. Thanks Charlie.

There’s nowt wrong with being a hippy, if more people were hippies the world’d be a much nicer place to live instead of it being all

Great little vid. Love how they invented the off road bike but also bike uplift.
Can you still ride that track or is it fettered with gates and other obstacles?

Drac he certainly did claim exactly that

Oh please shut up for once.

Cool video

But…

he certainly did claim exactly that

Yes. He certainly did. Many times. On multiple mtb forums. infact every +5 or +10 year aniversary of some claim or other. eventually after many confrontations from folk all over the world who challenged his ridiculous claims Charlie has amended his story to something far closer to the truth.
Did other folk race their mates bikes down hills away from tarmac roads before Charlie and his pals? Of course they did! Is there video evidence? no idea. Possibly.
I personally find Charlie’s storys far more enjoyable to hear now they’re more truthful and accurate and he’s no longer trying to claim him and his pals were doing things on bikes no one else had done previously. Where they took the concept is awesome and I thank them for their part in where bike design has now reached.

Mik knew all this before it even happened.

TJ not accepting change? Who’da thought? 😉

Brant & Drac +1.

What we do and how we do it wouldn’t be the same for a lot of us – without those guys. They made riding bikes off-road practical and into the mainstream. They did something that the RSF didn’t do or probably didn’t even seek to do. I have a lot of respect for the RSF but they were not mountain bikers.

Charlie and his compatriots did so much for most of us – to pretend they didn’t and someone else did is disingenuous.

Thanks for making some of my great times outdoors possible Charlie.

I personally find Charlie’s storys far more enjoyable to hear now they’re more truthful and accurate and he’s no longer trying to claim him and his pals were doing things on bikes no one else had done previously. Where they took the concept is awesome and I thank them for their part in where bike design has now reached.

+1

There can be no definative inventor of the mountain bike, it evolved.

That said, the guys involved in the whole Repack thing did go on to lead bikes in the direction of what many of us ride today.

I have ridge bikes I go out for days at a time on, a HT I rag around my local woods and a big old FS I tear down bloody great hills on.

I **** love every one of them and rarely ever don’t enjoy a ride.

So I’m grateful for the development of bikes in general, for any and every discipline.

Coming on here and pissing on people’s chips says more about you than them.

Sun’s out, I’m off for a ride.

Love it! 1979 was when 16 year old me finally cut my hair and aknowledged it wasn’t cool to be a hippy any more(although I’m still a bit hippy at heart). We were always ten years behind around here. I’d graduated to a cheap motor bike by then, but a couple of years before I spent a lot of time tear arsing around the local disused quarry trying to do jumps on a variety of home bodged clunkers. Managed to put my front teeth through my lip while trying to jump across a road. My face hit the home made cross brace on the cow horn bars that a mate had welded on for me. Was shit at jumping then and still am. Was probably late eighties before I got into it again and got my first proper rigid mountain bike and I’m sure that bike wouldn’t have been available if it weren’t for guys like those.

That was great fun to watch, thank you for posting.