I have a lengthy narrative composed for a comprehensive work on the subject. My previous efforts were not very satisfying, and I would like one more shot at writing this amazing adventure down while I'm still conscious. I have in my files every relevant scrap of paper, and my published and unpublished writings starting in 1977 preserve a timeline of events.
I am represented by a literary agent who is currently pitching it to a big bike book publisher. I already turned down one offer because the publisher wanted me to write something other than what I wanted to leave as my written legacy.
The right book hasn't been written yet. Frank Berto lives in my town and I have known him for many years. Frank is an engineer, and he sees things from a mechanical point of view. But mountain biking is not just machines, because there have been dozens of similar machines created ever since the "safety bicycle" took the roads away from the penny-farthings. There have been any number of groups who beat up old bikes on dirt trails and left no legacy. The initial Tour de France resembled nothing so much as a mountain bike race of unimaginable distance and duration, but as roads improved, in the interest of overall speed the race moved to them.
Mountain biking is a modern sport, not just a machine, and some special conditions were required to turn it from a local hobby into a worldwide phenomenon. As soon as those conditions were met, the sport happened. It is not a coincidence that the same sporting landscape also gave the world surfing, vertical skateboarding, snowboarding and BMX. The California boys wanted to go "YEE-HAW!" when they played.
Most people here have seen
my website, which is the current public repository for my files.
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My book,
Fat Tire Flyer: Repack and the Birth of Mountain Biking is at your bookseller and on
Amazon.