Cleland, the first British Mountain Bike? (ie. the first bike to be riden up a British mountain?)
There is little doubt that the Geoff Apps designed Range Rider was the first ‘Mountain Bike’ to be made in Britain. The first prototype was made in 1968 based on a Raleigh Explorer frame. Experiments using a variety of road bike framesets continued throughout the 1970s. His bikes mostly used 2 inch wide, 650b, knobbly snow tyres from Finland. His first Range Rider bikes, using a custom designed (un-braced) framesets were designed in 1978) I believe the frames where made by Dees Cycles of Amersham in 1979. These bikes had all the features of the Mountain bike, though their design was arrived at independently. I believe that these bikes were the first British made Mountain Bikes. (One had drum brakes the other cantilevers).
Later versions of these were sold by Cleland Cycles (Geoff’s own company), English Cycles, and Highpath Engineering over the next ten years. They were built to order and as far as I know, never mass produced. In October 1981 Nick Crane rode a third generation Range Rider prototype up Snowdon.