Recent content by Repack Rider

Thanks for noticing, it's my project. Here's a sample from the archive, October 26, 1976 DH race results. first names only because everyone knew each other. "Arial" [sic] and Jr. are dogs, who got timed following their owners down the hill.

On October 21, 1976, I met five friends at the top of a steep dirt road. We had clocks, and the object was to settle for all time who was the world and universe champion of fat-tire downhill. It didn't settle anything. It started something. Here is the Dirt Rag article on the recent 40th...

Mountain bike racing started in Fairfax, California with the Repack downhill races between 1976 and 1984. At first the town was a little undecided about its place in bicycle history, but then over the next few decades thousands of mountain bikers came to town and spent millions of dollars...

1978, hand-built Breezer. Helmets had not yet been invented.

Wouldn't be surprised. I rode with a guy who had a prosthetic lower leg, and it had a Fox shock in it where the Achilles tendon is. He said it was designed for bicycling, and that there was a different design for running. The guy was such a good rider, we were a couple of miles up the trail...

This is the first video ever shot of the off-road cycling sport, not yet called "mountain biking." It aired on a US network in 1979. A hippie named Gary Fisher makes a claim in the video that the sport will go a long way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVWP6VaLtvw

1979 Downhill race This is probably the first video ever shot of this new type of bicycling, not yet called mountain biking. Here we heavy-duty bikes, being ridden in a dangerous fashion down steep dirt roads by insane hippies. One of the lot, a chap named Gary Fisher, predicts that this...

According to Tomac's Wikipedia entry, he moved to Southern California (where the photo was taken) and took up mountain biking in 1986. At the time of the photo, he would have been 18 years old. Unlikely he would have been competitive any younger. As far as I know, the informal race where this...

Reaching down with my REAR BRAKE hand to loosen the seatpost QR and drop the saddle before the big downhill, then tapping the front brake and going OTB while going at about 3 mph. All caught on video, but you have to sit through the whole thing to see it at the end...

Sorry to bump such an old thread, but I don't actually check in here that often. Following up on Brisben's Kos, here is a photo of John Tomac in his first MTB race in 1986, riding what looks to be a very similar bike with modifications for off-road.

My '94 Ritchey P-21

A friend from way back in the day posted these videos on YouTube of the 1980 Crested Butte to Aspen Clunker tour. This was at the dawn of mountain biking, and there may have been a hundred people who considered themselves mountain bikers. Most had built their own equipment, because there was...

Moots still makes one. I once believed that a dozen custom off-road bikes would supply everyone who wanted one.

Not my bike, it belongs to my friend Alan Bonds, who shared the house at 32 Humbolt Avenue with me and Gary Fisher in 1976. No one ever built cleaner klunkerz than Alan, and he still builds them. You can see the finished product here, on Alan's website clunkers.net. I had to borrow an old...

I'm the guy in the photo, which came from my website, and I'm also a forum member even though I mostly lurk. If you wanted to ride off-road back in the cave-bike days, here is what you had to collect before you could start building your bike. Some assembly required. Any older, and...