Rewriting Mountain Bike History?

[GrahamJohnWallace]

I met Tom Ritchey in 1979. I have no opinion on this.

Thanks for the clarification on this Charlie.

The most interesting question here is, did the existence of 'Roughstuff' bikes in California have any influence on the development of the mountain bike?

Whilst the mountain bike's fat tyres and sturdy frames have definite American roots from the Schwinn Excelsior and similar bikes, the lightweight frames, Alpine gear systems and cantilever brakes all have European origins. How did the US pioneers learn about these components etc? And how influential was the existence of US Roughstuff bikes?

These English 'Woodsie' bikes were definitely important to the first of the US pioneers, John Finley Scott.
And judging by the wording of the 1977/650b claim, they also turned Tom Ritchey onto the possibilities of off-road cycling.

 

[PurpleFrog]

Whilst the mountain bike's fat tyres and sturdy frames have definite American roots

No.

No one "invented" the mountain bike, because it isn't a real engineering concept - it's an arbitrary marketing category.

If you look back to the early C20th, tourers routinely rode on tracks that would have passed for mountain biking in its earliest days. The frames they used were obviously "sturdy" because they didn't break and the smarter ones used balloon tyres - the famous Velocio's preferred bike had English made 2.25 ish balloon tyres on 24 rims. Even the first TDFs were more like gravel grinders than modern road races:

http://www.63xc.com/willm/tdef.htm

What happened in California was that a sport was successfully marketed, not that any new technology was invented. The key technical
factor in the longterm success of mountain biking, one that hadn't existed before, was probably the Japanese's ability to build tough high quality components at an affordable price. In particular, an affordable powertrain with a wide range of gears was needed. People like Ritchey and Bontrager were the beneficiaries of the key technology, not its creators - the other luck they had was being in a location with attractive places to ride in easy reach of cities full of affluent young-ish people.

 

[We_are_Stevo]

Re:

That's probably the perfect synopsis of this discussion; anything further is just so much hot air...

...ever since two-wheelers were invented, carrying wooden wheels, people have been 'perfecting' and adapting the idea; inconceivable that just one person would come up with a particular idea!

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re:

Creating the mountain bike was a process similar to that of creating a new recipe that later becomes popular worldwide. Yes all the ingredients already existed but it is the gathering together of the key components and combining them successfully, that is key.

From a historical viewpoint the question of, why this happened in 1970s California? That is interesting. How the combination of pre existing fat tyred bikes, accessible mountains and an active local cycling fraternity led to a unique synthesis.

However tyres, frames and geography did not complete the recipe. For that you also need to add in some European style lightweight frames and French technology in the form of Alpine gear-chains and powerful lightweight cantilever brakes. Technologies that did not arrive in America by magic. Was it via Cyclocross? Cycle-touring or maybe via custom made English 'Roughstuff' bikes etc?

And as far as I am aware the story of how such European concepts were picked up by the US pioneers has so far, not been told. It's not so much a matter of 'rewriting mountain bike history'. But of investigating areas of mountain bike history that seem to have been overlooked.

 

[PurpleFrog]

Re:

From a historical viewpoint the question of, why this happened in 1970s California? That is interesting. How the combination of pre existing fat tyred bikes, accessible mountains and an active local cycling fraternity led to a unique synthesis.

Again, no, this is simply not true. There was nothing "unique" except for those cheap 3x6 powertrains from Japan. That's it. There were no advances in frame design, no secret recipe: those wide Nokian tyres existed because there were bikes that could use them.

As for "Why California?" for the concept taking off again, disposable income, weather, terrain, access to finance and media meant that mtb builders here were more likely to expand than Apps in the UK, those 20-odd guys in 50s France (who didn't have the powertrains needed anyway) or Finnish and Swiss military contractors.

Oh - and add in the 70s BMX boom for timing and location. Which had prospered especially strongly in California because of the weather.

 

[PurpleFrog]

Putting my Serious Hat on: the pseudo history of mountain biking where it is marketed as a US innovation (but the real IP is Japanese) is emblematic of deep and fairly awful trends in US innovation. Apple is another good example: people think of it as innovator, but this is mostly false. It's "innovation" is almost entirely driven by the components Samsung and ARM can offer ad the real lasting value created by dollars spent on iPads goes to the Koreans - the semiconductor fabs it pays for. Apple of course has a high book value, but owns few real assets - all that book values means is that US investors have swapped pieces of paper with each other in a zero sum game.

 

[highlandsflyer]

Re:

Punk is still an American innovation though, right?

 

[JensM]

Punk was made up by a less than successfull clothes designer to hock his wares to the unsuspecting youth...

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re: Re:

From a historical viewpoint the question of, why this happened in 1970s California? That is interesting. How the combination of pre existing fat tyred bikes, accessible mountains and an active local cycling fraternity led to a unique synthesis.

Again, no, this is simply not true. There was nothing "unique" except for those cheap 3x6 powertrains from Japan...

I believe that there where two aspects of the mountain bike that were new:

Firstly, a new aesthetic in bicycle design was created when Tom Ritchey combined his expertise in building quality road bikes with the componentry of the klunker mountain bikes.
It was this iconic road style frame with 26" fat tyres and straight handlebars look that was imitated worldwide. For the first time ever, utility bikes were cool.

Geoff Apps' design, though functionally extremely well considered, was in comparison traditional and old fashioned.

Secondly, the stiff frame/wheel structures and shock absorbing tyres combined with the ergonomic placing of brakes and gear controls introduced new levels of safety and rider control.
Those who remember riding 1970s 10 speed bikes with down tube changers and 'suicide' brake levers will know what I mean.

 

[PurpleFrog]

Re: Re:

Firstly, a new aesthetic in bicycle design was created when Tom Ritchey combined his expertise in building quality road bikes with the componentry of the klunker mountain bikes.
It was this iconic road style frame with 26" fat tyres and straight handlebars look that was imitated worldwide. For the first time ever, utility bikes were cool.

That's marketing, not technical innovation. And while aesthetics are highly subjective, I think any reasonable person would agree that the classic 50s English "roadsters" were good looking - more so than most mountain bikes - and they were definitely utility bikes. So for that matter were French randoneurs - they're great everyday riders and excellent load carriers.

...I don't either of these bikes is going to make anyone say "Take this monstrosity away so that I may gaze uninterruptedly upon an early Stumpjumper!"

Secondly, the stiff frame/wheel structures and shock absorbing tyres combined with the ergonomic placing of brakes and gear controls introduced new levels of safety and rider control.

The shock absorbing tyres already existed. Thats the only reason they could be fitted. They had existed before WW1. The Californian BMX boom was in full swing and these bikes were not racing on 23mm rubber.

Those who remember riding 1970s 10 speed bikes with down tube changers and 'suicide' brake levers will know what I mean.

[/quote]

Yes: very expensive mountain bikes had better brakes than the very poorest ones you could find. But so what? Innovation is improving on the **best,** not the worst! Velocio had ridden the Alps - on tracks that look every bit as "offroad" as the tracks the early Californians were "mountain biking" on - in the early C20th. On balloon tyres, with a bike that was obviously strong enough as it lasted decades. Then in the 50s French riders had used bikes with cantis and suspension forks!

As for the thumbie: putting gear controls on the bars isn't genius. It's obvious and childrens' bikes and Raleigh Shoppers (and probably Schwinns) had done it for years. Again all that happened was Shimano's cheap 3x6 powertrains arrived. That's it: you need a wide gear range to make mountain biking accessible to non-elite athletes, and it has to be affordable before you can sell many bikes. This was the only meaningful difference between the American bikes and the French ones, and it had nothing to do with any innovation made in California.

Whatever Gary Fisher's PR people might say, this is a mountain bike:

..And the Gauloise Smoker rocking those Mary Bars - and that suspension fork! - is doing so before GF had learned to walk. Would these people have put wider tyres on their bikes if they could have got them? Yes. Would they have used 3x6 powertrains if Shimano had sent them back in time? Yes - these people made their own suspension forks, for goodness sake!

There simply were no real innovations in the "creation" of the mtb in California c.1980, only people doing what had been done before in a place with better weather, more disposable income, and at a time when the Japanese had solved the only really hard problem for them - making those powertrains cheaply.