1953 JFS John Finley-Scott WOODSIE Tribute! (USA)

[Tsundere]

A faithful recreation of the iconic bike that reputedly played a pivotal role in the formation of this great sport.

1953 JFS John Finley-Scott WOODSIE 1st mountain bike Tribute! museum / show ride | eBay

A super unique piece of mountain bike history. This is a 1953 John Finley-Scott 'Woodsie' tribute for museum, show or ride. This Woodsie is considered as the birth and concept of the 'modern mountain bike'.

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[Tsundere]

Original build thread...

1953 'Woodsie' John Finley Scott tribute project - Bike Forums

Classic & Vintage - 1953 'Woodsie' John Finley Scott tribute project - As if I don't have enough to do these days and plenty of bike builds, I've long wanted to build a legit era klunker though something having soul, a statement of what and whys, American origin of the coined mountain bike. I'm...

www.bikeforums.net

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

A faithful recreation of the bike that started it all.

The received historical wisdom is that balloon tire 'post-boy bikes,' modified for downhill racing, was the starting point that led to mountain bikes and mountain biking starting in the US. In this context, the 1953 John Finley Scott 'Varsity' bike has been considered as an early example of the one-off proto-mountain bikes, created for personal use and so not known to the Repack pioneers when they independently created similar bikes they called klunkers .

For this bike to be proven as 'the bike that started it all, at least an early klunker builder or someone like Craig Mitchel, Don Koski, Mert Lawwill, Joe Breeze, Tom Ritchey, Charlie Kelly, or Gary Fisher, would have to announce that John Findley-Scott's 1953 bike was their primary inspiration.

John Findley-Scott was important in encouraging Tom Ritchey, Charlie Kelly and Gary Fisher to set up in business making mountain bikes. However, this doesn't prove that they were at all inspired by this 1953 bike or even knew about it until later.

 

[ferrus]

Doesn’t the fact that JFS was himself inspired to support Fisher and Kelly’s venture implicate his bike in the lineage, whether it’s acknowledged or not? (ie. he was a part of the story so his bike is too.)
Sure the guys would no doubt have succeeded without him but he was involved, so….?

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Doesn’t the fact that JFS was himself inspired to support Fisher and Kelly’s venture implicate his bike in the lineage, whether it’s acknowledged or not? (ie. he was a part of the story so his bike is too.)

In product development the same ideas can develop independently at different times and places. Sometimes these ideas get picked up, adopted widely and go viral. Other times as with JFS's 1953 bike, they go unnoticed, maybe because they are two far ahead of their time, and maybe for they don't get the backing they deserve.

Dictionary definition of 'lineage' = Line of direct descent from an ancestor.

There is no direct or even indirect decent between JFS' 'Woodsie' bike and the later mountain bikes until someone amongst the mountain bike pioneers says that this bike inspired them to create their own versions.

JFS's continued off-road cycling over 20+ years may not have inspired the mountain bike pioneers to also take up off-road cycling. However, in a letter in the 1963 Rough Stuff Fellowship journal, he says that "As far as I know I am the only American cyclist with an special interest in rough stuff riding". In that he was a true pioneer, and his accounts of his adventures remain an inspiration to this day

To use a evolutionary analogy JFS's 1953 bike idea had no prodigy and became extinct. For the next 20+ years, JFS continues cycling off-road, incidentally, not on bikes based on his 1953 design, but mostly on an English rough-stuff bike made for him by Jim Guard in Southampton. He then meets fellow off-road cyclists who are riding similar bikes his 1953 'Woodsie' and seeing them as fellow pioneers, backs them financially.
This connection between JFS's 1953 bike and the mountain bikes is JFS's continued love of off-road cycling and not his 1953 bike that only existed in his memory and few photos.

IF JFS's support of Fisher and Kelly’s venture is to 'implicate his bike in the lineage' of the mountain bike, then the English Rough Stuff bikes he loved should should also be included. Especially as Tom Ritchey has described the 650b wheeled rough stuff bike he made for JFS in 1977 as the first mountain bike he ever made.

Sure the guys would no doubt have succeeded without him but he was involved, so….?

According to Joe Breeze, John Finley-Scott's "backing of Fisher and Kelly gave their "MountainBikes" business more momentum, perhaps the critical momentum to carry through to inspire others".

I don't think that MountainBikes had much money early on, so Scott's investment in MountainBikes would have definitely speeded things up. Their big break through came when they displayed a couple of bikes at a bike show held at Long Beach in October 1981. This is where the Japanese and others saw mountain bikes for the first time, and so were inspired to go away to make copies and specialist components. Things would have worked out differently if they hadn't got those bikes ready in time to display there.

 

[ferrus]

I probably should have said chronology instead of lineage. My point being that as a minor member of the ‘team’ his bicycle becomes a part of the narrative (chronology). He got involved because of his enthusiasm for off road bike design, and this along with his financial support, TA chainsets etc would have further inspired CK and Fisher. If his backing was as significant as mentioned above, then he has to be considered even more a member of the team. I just don’t see how his bike isn’t a relevant part of the story.
It’s also inconceivable that they wouldn’t have discussed the Woodsie and JFS experiences right from the beginning of his involvement - adding to the general enthusiasm and inspiration to proceed - even if the bike was regarded as a failed prototype without any direct design influence.

- it might not be “the bike that started it all” but maybe it’s “the bike at the start of it all”

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

- it might not be “the bike that started it all” but maybe it’s “the bike at the start of it all”

The Marin Mountain Bike Hall of Fame entry for JFS agrees with you. It has a picture of his 1953 bike and the only reference to the bike in the text says: "Let’s start in 1953. That year, John Finley Scott made the world’s first known mountain bike. It had multiple gears and knobby tires. He called it his “woodsie.” The entry does not claim that there was any evolutionary link between the 1953 bike and later mountain bikes.

As to the claim that "Scott made the world’s first known mountain bike". Here's an 'unknown' bike from the 1920's. It also has 'multiple gears' and fat tires, though the quality if the photo doesn't show if they were knobbly or not: Vernon Blake was a remarkable all-terrain adventure cyclist and inventor who patented some early derailleur gear designs. (Though not a system to take up chain-slack) Unfortunately Blake died in April 1930 at the age of 54 before he could develop his ideas for off-road bikes further. Here's a link to Blake's own description of this remarkable bike first published in 1930 after his death: Vernon Blake Bike article Flickr

I remember the old Crested Butte Mountain Bike Hall of Fame where people could nominate themselves and every year be put forward to a member's vote. As a result, each year there were several entries from those who like JFS had earlier built balloon tyre off-road bicycles well before the klunker era and who submitted old B&W photos as proof. However, though their stories were credible they were not inducted, presumably because there was no proven links that the mountain bikes had descended from any of these these machines. JFS was however successfully inducted in 2007, presumably because he was known to and assisted the Marin pioneers.

What most of these proto-mountain bikes had in common is that they had descended from the balloon tyre 'post-boy' children's bikes that were originally designed to look like motorbikes in the1930's. Bellow is the story of the origin of this style of bike from Wikipedia:

'F. W. Schwinn returned to Chicago and in 1933 introduced the Schwinn B-10E Motorbike, actually a youth's bicycle designed to imitate a motorcycle. The company revised the model the next year and renamed it the Aerocycle. For the Aerocycle, F. W. Schwinn persuaded American Rubber Co. to make 2.125-inch-wide (54.0 mm) balloon tires, while adding streamlined fenders, an imitation "gas tank", a streamlined, chrome-plated headlight, and a push-button bicycle bell.'

I would therefore argue that the original Schwinn B-10E Motorbike prototype would be "the bike that started it all". However, the balloon tire developed for the B-10E was also crucial the development of the later mountain bikes.

 

[ferrus]

“The bike At the Start of it all” - I’m referring to the Kelly-Fisher story/chronology. As an observation.

As you say other fat tyred geared bikes certainly preceded the Woodsie. I seem to remember one featured in The Dancing Chain even earlier than Vernon Blake’s

 

[Synthiaks]

Ok, while not mountain bikes as such, clearly up a mountain and must have been rough going back then...

Also check out the grandfather of slingshot frames 2nd from the right!

And the pegs on the front forks for downhill speeding as assume these are fixed gears....

Like racing pretty sure as soon as bikes were invented a adventurer took one off road...

 

[Synthiaks]

Not much tyre gap at the front.

nice build though.