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There’s a
lot of history and information floating
around about the origins of mountain
biking, some that’s recognized and some
that depends on who has the best public
relations firm. Mountain biking would
have happened somewhere and it did.
Did it
begin with the Buffalo Soldiers, a
turn-of-the-century infantry who
customized bicycles to carry gear over
rough terrain? It was August 1896, the
riders, black enlisted men and a white
lieutenant, rode from Missoula, Montana,
to Yellowstone and back, an arduous 800
miles. Their mission: to test the
bicycle for military use in mountainous
terrain.
Or was
it the Velo Cross Club Parisian (VCCP)
of France? Comprised of about 20 young
bicyclists from the outskirts of Paris,
who between 1951 and 1956, they
developed a sport that was remarkably
akin to present-day mountain biking.
These riders juiced up their French
650-B bikes with an extraordinary degree
of technical sophistication.
Maybe it
was John Finley Scott who was probably
the first mountain bike enthusiast in
the United States. In 1953 he built what
he called a “Woodsie Bike”, using a
Schwinn World diamond frame, balloon
tires, flat handlebars, derailleur
gears, and cantilever brakes. John was
more than twenty years ahead of his
time, and while he remained an off-road
cycling enthusiast, at the time there
were not many others who shared his
passion.
We
believed that the inception of mountain
biking needed to be a continuous series
of events that connected with one
another as opposed to an isolated
incident. Another example, in the early
1970s there were a band of cyclists -
The Cupertino Riders, AKA - the Morrow
Dirt Club, from Cupertino California, 75
miles south of Marin, who were modifying
their bikes. They were grafting
thumb-shift-operated derailleurs and
motorcycle lever-operated drum brakes to
their klunkers to help them get up and
down the south bay hills. They competed
against some future hall-of-famers at a
Marin County Cylcecross race in late
1974, where their technology was
noticed. Then they disappeared.
We
believe that the continuous history of
the mountain bike is most evident in
Northern California. There are a few
areas that will claim to be the first
mountain bike community, but every
history book will lead you to Marin
County. The origins of mountain biking
were totally innocent. It came into
being not as some faddist vision of
profit-oriented marketing types, but
rather as the product of true cycling
enthusiasts trying to find something new
to do on two wheels. These cyclists
found through fun and competition that
the old one-speed klunkers they were
using could be improved with modern
cycling technology. One thing led to
another and mountain biking - “the
sport” - was born.
Read the
Basic
riding techniques and Safety
riding rules. |
