Expert Answers
The Invention of Mountain Biking
JCorbett's Question.
Who first invented mountain bike racing?
Steve Jones's Answer.
It's difficult to answer this question without first getting into a bit of the history of mountain biking itself. Surprisingly, the early days of mountain biking have left behind a distinct trail of information, no doubt due to the fat tires themselves.
In the early 70s, the most popular biking was done astride road bikes. You may remember them: sleek frames and thin tires, with handlebars resembling horns of Rocky Mountain sheep. They were racing machines — designed for smooth asphalt and concrete surfaces.
California, with its uncanny knack of fostering innovation in many cultural arenas, harbored a large group of road cyclists. Some — like Otis Guy, Gary Fisher, and Joe Breeze — still push the limits of off-road biking design. But it was others, whose names have faded like the tread on a well-worn tire, who first sparked the idea of mountain biking in general, and racing, in particular.
A group called the Canyon Gang — Robert and Kim Kraft, John York, and Tom Slifka — is generally credited with being the first to hold untimed races down Marin County, California's, Mount Tamalpais, or Mt. Tam, for short. They would get themselves and their"ballooners" (also known as "clunkers," "bombers," or "beaters") up to the top of 2600-foot Mt. Tam the best they could, and then bomb down the trail, using the coaster brakes as little as possible.
Ballooners, called so because of their "balloon" tire design, became the world's first mountain bikes. Gary Fisher and Joe Breeze hooked up with former Canyon Ganger Marc Vendetti, and the three of them started exploring the off-road possibilities. Originally, they were looking for places to do some "power training," and the ride up Mt. Tam seemed the perfect place to test their strength by cranking a 52x20 gear mounted to a slightly modified Schwinn Excelsior frame.
And, like mountain bikers everywhere do today, the three of them constantly explored new places where they could expand their new-found love for zipping down mountainsides. It wasn't long before Pine Mountain, just north of Mt. Tam, was discovered. Its 1300-foot descent over two miles seemed the perfect site for Marin County's road racers to test their bike handling skills.
It was on Pine Mountain's east face where, on the morning of October 21, 1976, the first "official" timed mountain bike race was held. No NORBA officials handled registration. No announcers hyped the pre-race ceremonies. It was a race to see who could plummet the fastest.
Timed with a Navy chronometer and an alarm clock, the first mountain bike racers left the starting gate at two-minute intervals. The bikes they rode looked more like the bike the boy delivering papers rode — without chain guard, basket, fenders, kick stand, and "tank" — the bulbous design just under the top tube. Still, they weighed in at more than 45 pounds.
Despite the existing caliper-controlled drum brakes already in use by some, the bikes on Pine Mountain that morning were stopped and slowed by coaster brakes. You know, those brakes operated by locking the pedals in a counter-cranking motion. But it was hard on the bikes, and the brakes. So hard, in fact, that the hubs heated the grease, which left a smoky trail. At the bottom, bikers had to re-pack their hubs with new grease in order to ride again. Pretty soon, the trail itself was called "Repack."
In nearly nine years, 24 races were held at Repack. And, as is all too often the case, the immense popularity of the event drew the attention of officials who worried about trail conditions and other safety factors. The final race was held in 1984 with Gary Fisher holding the all-time record of 4 minutes, 22 seconds. Joe Breeze won nearly half the races, with 10 first-place finishes.
By the time Repack was run for the last time, mountain bikes were taking on the familiar shape many of us now recognize. There were no front or rear suspensions yet, but shifters, derailleurs, brakes, and fat tires were mounted on lighter and lighter bikes. In what has been an amazing growth, over 10 million bikes have been sold per year since 1984, but only approximately 1 percent of sales made up of the traditional road bike.
Although racing remains fairly limited within the general population (less than 1 percent of bikes are bought specifically with racing in mind), the racing industry continues to drive the research and development of lighter and stronger bikes. In the almost 25 years since mountain biking's first race, biking (in general, but mountain biking in particular) ranks among the top 5 recreational activities in America.
