What if? (UK Klunkers)

Bit of a thought experiment (though might become more over the winter)…

If mountain biking had developed in late ’70s Britain instead of California and Colorado, what bikes would they have used as the basis for their klunkers instead of the old Schwinn, etc. cruisers that the Americans used?

I know we had Geoff Apps and his crew, but they were doing something slightly different in concept.

I had a ‘Tracker’ – a stripped down Raleigh Superbe with cable brakes, some Motocross ‘bars my dad fitted and slightly knobby tires. Would have been late 70’s early 80’s (I was born in ’72). I’m thinking I might have actually invented mountain biking?

Rode it far more than my 5speed ‘droppie’………and then I got a Piranha BMX and never looked back

I also had a tracker and a racer.

The tracker was single speed with cow horn bars and knobblies. Cow horns came in 2 sizes.

Only super cool kids had the wide ones

I don’t think mountain biking of that type would ever have been pioneered in the UK, as we don’t have big enough hills. Blasting down fire tracks at speed uses up the average UK hill pretty quickly.

Anything being pioneered here would be more of a cross country, trekking kind of affair. Hence the Rough Stuff Fellowship and that kind of thing.

We’re Land Rovery ploddy country, rather than flat out V8 Baja buggy country.

Thinking messing about in the woods or the old quarry rather than Repack fire roads or Rough Stuff nadgering.

How about the raleigh bomber? That seems like a UK clunkner.

More likely would have been the bikes used by the old CSC Cycle speedway clubs – they looked the part with their peculiar shopper-ish north road handlebars.

Bomber. Yes. But built from ‘junk’ on a shoestring rather than bought whole and new.

Rough Stuff nadgering

Lol. My new default answer when asked what my hobby is.

We’re Land Rovery ploddy country, rather than flat out V8 Baja buggy country.

I was born in the wrong country.

I don’t think mountain biking of that type would ever have been pioneered in the UK, as we don’t have big enough hills. Blasting down fire tracks at speed uses up the average UK hill pretty quickly.

Agree with this – where in the UK would you find something that was long and steep enough to do what the californians did, but easy enough in terrain and corners that a coaster braked rigid bike was viable?

I don’t think mountain biking of that type would ever have been pioneered in the UK, as we don’t have big enough hills.

Mount Tamalpais is 786m according to Wiki. That’s bigger than the hill I can see from my window, but I can get to a 500m ascent/descent fairly quickly around here – do I need the extra 200m to make it proper MTBing?

Blasting down fire tracks at speed uses up the average UK hill pretty quickly.

What do you think we used to do in the early days in the UK, ride around canals? ‘Oh don’t bother going up the hill, we’ll be back down too quickly..’

Tracker. Cowhorns on a racer with knobbly tyres.

though, if it was something more serious that developed, then touring bikes would have probably been adopted.

Agree with this – where in the UK would you find something that was long and steep enough to do what the californians did, but easy enough in terrain and corners that a coaster braked rigid bike was viable?

The Repack races were on a 2.1 mile course with a 1,300ft drop. I could think of a few forest roads that might qualify but none near a population centre of any size so it’s maybe that combination we were missing.

As a kid who was born in the late 60’s and had a dad who raced MX or Scrambles as it was back then we all just stuck MX bars on whatever bike we could get our hands on until BMX became a thing.

Was definitely more a thrashing around in the woods than going up big hills though.

Agree with this – where in the UK would you find something that was long and steep enough to do what the californians did, but easy enough in terrain and corners that a coaster braked rigid bike was viable?

You’ve described what The Wall at Afan was when it was just fire-roads, before the ‘proper’ MTB trails were built. Maybe, as Scotroutes said, the bit that’s missing were the people, not the locations.

I mean, you could do the same thing over half or one third the vert and still have fun.

My first thought was Bomber as well – not sure if just ‘cos it looks most like a Klunker – but it does look like it’d be fun on the singletrack: