The sport is now 40 years old

On October 21, 1976, I met a few friends at the top of a steep and rough dirt road to settle for all time who was the fastest downhill on our modified heavy duty fat tire bikes.

It didn’t settle anything. It started something.

My friend Rob Korotky wrote this article that is in the current issue of Dirt Rag.

So who won the casual ride? 😉

So who won the casual ride?

Gary Fisher and I had a third roommate named Alan Bonds. Alan was the winner.

I got your book for Christmas, great read, cheers. 🙂

*walks in with a cake and candles lit*

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU….. 🙂

Is it October already?

Well done etc..

So your bike race is 40 years old, or do you actually mean mountain biking as a sport is 40 years old ?

Both.

All the best Repack, and thanks…

It’s a well established fact that, until 40 years ago, no one ever raced their mates down a hill on bicycles they’d been modifying for the purpose.

you did well Charlie……..awesome 8)

It’s a well established fact that, until 40 years ago, no one ever raced their mates down a hill on bicycles they’d been modifying for the purpose.

Nope – I never did that as a kid on a converted 10spd racer with cowhorn handlebars in my local woods.

Everyone knows it didn’t exist until those crazy Californians invented it.

Swoon.

🙂

Nope – I never did that as a kid on a converted 10spd racer with cowhorn handlebars in my local woods.

Everyone knows it didn’t exist until those crazy Californians invented it.

everyone did that, it was called scrambling or grass tracking………..hardly the same as mountainbiking was it. we had shit racing bike to do it on, not the ace cruiser they had in the states, which modded into mtb’s. a shit racer cant be modded into a mtb.

It’s a well established fact that, until 40 years ago, no one ever raced their mates down a hill on bicycles they’d been modifying for the purpose.

Just as well each thread repack rider posts reminds us that he “invented” the sport…

No-one before 1976 ever thought to ride bicycles on anything other than perfectly smooth & flat tarmac. Nope, no-sir-ee. Clearly never happened.

Stop posturing, this should be a raging argument by now.

Edit: That’s better. *grabs letterbox*

What Ton said. You can bang on about jumpers for goalposts-esque nostalgia for British riding off tarmac but this webpage, and what we know as a mountain bike evolved from the efforts of Repack Rider and his mates. Cheers fella, many happy returns mountain biking. 8)

Tough crowd.
It was, was it not this race and the people involved that went onto develop the bikes we know as mountain bikes and made them commercially available?

No. Yes. Don’t know. Broken my letterbox.

you feeling alright rich? 😕

So racing my mates on a single-speed Elswick-Hopper down Rudland Rigg in 1968 doesn’t count? I is disappoint.

If you regularly come on a forum, throwing roses at yourself about how you invented the sport, you can probably expect to get a little grief…

#40yearoldfakenews

Cheers Charlie…. and thanks!

If all the crabbit auld bastards are on here, the Brexit thread must be quiet……

It was, was it not this race and the people involved that went onto develop the bikes we know as mountain bikes and made them commercially available?

Indeed it was.

Griping that you and your mates were riding off-road beforehand is as irrelevant as musicians in Europe claiming they were making improvised swing music around blues scales before 1910 – nobody noticed them, they didn’t start a cultural phenomenon as the New Orleans jazz musicians did.

I rode my BMX around the woods in the ’80s before MTBs were well known here – and then commercial MTBs arrived and my horizons were suddenly expanded!

Thanks Charlie & co!

Does it really matter who ‘invented’ MTB?

We should all just be glad it did develop out of kids messing about on hacked together bikes, wherever they were.

I think to try & belittle what Charlie, Joe, Gary et al did back in the day is to rather miss the point of how much they contributed to the sport.

Yes, you may have been razzing around the woods with your mates around the same time…..but is your name in the MTB Hall of Fame? If not, get back in your box & show a little respect…….if that’s not too much to ask..

Have you a new book out then ?

He’d probably get more respect if he had something else to say, rather just banging on about how awesome he is.

I think to try & belittle what Charlie, Joe, Gary et al did back in the day is to rather miss the point of how much they contributed to the sport.

Yes, you may have been razzing around the woods with your mates around the same time…..but is your name in the MTB Hall of Fame? If not, get back in your box & show a little respect…….if that’s not too much to ask..

I think a few may be a little fed up with the repeated self-praise. Clearly, the repackers made the sport what it is today, for which praise is due, but equally, they didn’t invent off-road cycling.

youve missed the 40th birthday by 4 months…..

Wow. It only seems like yesterday…

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/35th-anniversary-of-the-sport

Ah, so its YOUR fault we’ve been riding on 26″ wheels all these years…

And thanks 🙂

The Uk had plenty opportunity to invent the mtb.
We had the tyres and the frames.
But we didn’t…

Bicycling News 22 Dec 1938 – Elswick Hopper

The 26×2 tyres were probably delivery bike size, not 559mm rims

a shit racer cant be modded into a mtb

Not a racer, not shit. MTB? Semantics…….
See also old school CXers, Raleigh Bombers, Rough Stuff Fellowship et al.

And this…

It’s all riding bikes and having fun.

try doing it with a 1970’s carlton corsair Flash…… 😆

I’m not THAT old, Ton! 😉

So racing my mates on a single-speed Elswick-Hopper down Rudland Rigg in 1968 doesn’t count? I is disappoint.

What happened to your range of bikes that you developed and sold for the purpose

The Uk had plenty opportunity to invent the mtb.
We had the tyres and the frames.
But we didn’t…

That’s the way I see it

Off road riding is as old as the bike. What with tarmac roads being rare when bikes started out. But bikes and cycling were changes by the events in Calafornia

Fast forward to 4:20 😆