Rewriting Mountain Bike History?

[Frankenorange]

No one made the first mountain type bike. It’s been done as long as bicycles have been around. The most natural thing is to build an off road bicycle. Here are several French 1950s jobs with 650B wheels.

View attachment 761663View attachment 761664View attachment 761665View attachment 761666View attachment 761667 The Brit’s sometimes used 650C in the late1940 on their gravel pit racers. Wide bars aren’t new. Front drum brakes and suspension.View attachment 761668
In the UK bomb crater racing morphed into cyclo track. Phillips made one, 1950s.View attachment 761669
The Dutch also raced dirt, late 1940s-early 50s.
View attachment 761670
Cyclo cross started in the early 1900s as a way to have fun training on the off season. One village church steeple to another village church steeple. Since there were no rules people started riding cross country, throwing bikes over fences and running.
View attachment 761672

My friends and I all rode some trails and gravel in the 1950s. We used 26 inch American balooners or Department store rebranded Relaigh three speeds. Usually the balooners as three speeds didn’t become popular where I was living until the mid 1960s. Three speeds or three speeds converted to single speeds were used where I live in the 1970s. There are photos on the net of farm kids riding balooners on rural gravel roads in the 1930s. Early commercially made mountain bikes used balooner geometry or road lugs. Mountain bike geometry improved rapidly after that.

As soon as the first bicycle shaped object could be put up against a decent timepiece the riders would've been challenging each other to go up, or down, hills and such like.
I read a book along time ago about some WW2 pilots. I can't remember the UK airfield, or the book, but there was a hill nearby that had some kind of dirt path/track thing down it.
When time allowed these young british pilots would throw the airfield bicycles(there were many of these heavy singlespeed things on every military place in the UK and some are probably still going now) into airfield transport and go up the hill.
With borrowed stopwatches they timed the runs and even they didn't invent the first downhill offroad time trials as it was something some of them had done as kids, with mates counting seconds in place of stopwatches. Mods were done like removing guards and extending the handlebars.
I heard that people(mechanics and/or Vickers chaps probably)would race down the test hill on bicycles, at the Brooklands racing circuit. It was concrete and straight but another example of what happens when you give a human some wheels and a hill.
In the mid 70's myself and a bunch of friends would cycle all over the place. Mainly in our local woods and on common land. We found a track that went downhill and one of us would just shout "GO", as loud as possible from the bottom and start the stopwatch. All the bikes were a whatever parents bought us, or were found. There were definitely some klunker things and all sorts of brakes. All of the latter were mostly rubbish and even the best performers would be nothing short of a joke compared to modern downhill bike brakes.

Sure as bears sh!t in the woods none of the above were firsts. I bet you would have to go back a very long way to find the first timing of some people racing offroad downhills and it will probably be before 1900. I expect some loons were doing it on penny farthings but most certainly it would have been going on once the wheels were the same size, at either end. I am sure i read about a downhill event, that took place in the early 1900's, in France. Maybe that was the first proper competition? and maybe the pics in the above post are from that event?

What the Repack gang can be credited with is the marketing of what they were doing because some were framebuilders/engineers and they wanted to earn money. Some words were invented and a fun activiity, that was already many decades old, became a big thing thanks to industry contacts and then into an income, for a lucky few.

 

[m_xl]

Hi Max and welcome to RetroBike.

Thanks for providing a link to the 1963 Roughstuff Journal article by John Finley-Scott. This used to be available online but was taken down so. it's good to see it again.

With regards to the John Padgett 650b bike, accounts of its age vary from 1960s to the much later date posted with the following photo of 1978:

View attachment 761511

From other photos I can see that the bike had 650b Super Champion 58 rims who's production time would date the bike to 1970s-early 1980s. So 1978 is probably accurate. Interestingly, this would be around the same time that Tom Ritchey says that Finley-Scott ordered a 650b rough-stuff frame from him.

I know that a specialist rough-stuff bike could be ordered from Jack Taylor. I also understand that Archie Woodward, the Roughstuff Journal editor from 1969-1991, would refuse to publish technical articles. Therefore, it seems unlikely that such bikes were ever reported on? Do you happen to know if adverts for custom-built bikes like the Jack Taylor bike ever appeared in the Journal?

Thanks Graham.

I've looked through a good number of the journals (there's a full set in the archive) and never have seen any bike adverts. There are specific 'Rough-stuff' shoe adverts though!

Also having seen a lot of the 40,000+ photos in the archive, I can't say either I or the archivist have remarked on any obviously adapted bikes. The bikes seem to be mainly very standard tourers with 700C or 27" wheels (Dawes, Claud Butlers), with a few nice lightweights thrown in (curly Hetchins, Jack Taylors).

I've heard the same about Archie Woodward, and it does seem to be true, given the articles.

In the second book we made, we included a few good articles from the early/mid 80s debating both sides of whether these new mountain bikes were acceptable RSF transport. There were strong opinions (as there are about ebikes now), but later in the 80s they seemed to be accepted.

 

[Nabeaquam]

Thanks Graham.

I've looked through a good number of the journals (there's a full set in the archive) and never have seen any bike adverts. There are specific 'Rough-stuff' shoe adverts though!

Also having seen a lot of the 40,000+ photos in the archive, I can't say either I or the archivist have remarked on any obviously adapted bikes. The bikes seem to be mainly very standard tourers with 700C or 27" wheels (Dawes, Claud Butlers), with a few nice lightweights thrown in (curly Hetchins, Jack Taylors).

I've heard the same about Archie Woodward, and it does seem to be true, given the articles.

In the second book we made, we included a few good articles from the early/mid 80s debating both sides of whether these new mountain bikes were acceptable RSF transport. There were strong opinions (as there are about ebikes now), but later in the 80s they seemed to be accepted.

As soon as the first bicycle shaped object could be put up against a decent timepiece the riders would've been challenging each other to go up, or down, hills and such like.
I read a book along time ago about some WW2 pilots. I can't remember the UK airfield, or the book, but there was a hill nearby that had some kind of dirt path/track thing down it.
When time allowed these young british pilots would throw the airfield bicycles(there were many of these heavy singlespeed things on every military place in the UK and some are probably still going now) into airfield transport and go up the hill.
With borrowed stopwatches they timed the runs and even they didn't invent the first downhill offroad time trials as it was something some of them had done as kids, with mates counting seconds in place of stopwatches. Mods were done like removing guards and extending the handlebars.
I heard that people(mechanics and/or Vickers chaps probably)would race down the test hill on bicycles, at the Brooklands racing circuit. It was concrete and straight but another example of what happens when you give a human some wheels and a hill.
In the mid 70's myself and a bunch of friends would cycle all over the place. Mainly in our local woods and on common land. We found a track that went downhill and one of us would just shout "GO", as loud as possible from the bottom and start the stopwatch. All the bikes were a whatever parents bought us, or were found. There were definitely some klunker things and all sorts of brakes. All of the latter were mostly rubbish and even the best performers would be nothing short of a joke compared to modern downhill bike brakes.

Sure as bears sh!t in the woods none of the above were firsts. I bet you would have to go back a very long way to find the first timing of some people racing offroad downhills and it will probably be before 1900. I expect some loons were doing it on penny farthings but most certainly it would have been going on once the wheels were the same size, at either end. I am sure i read about a downhill event, that took place in the early 1900's, in France. Maybe that was the first proper competition? and maybe the pics in the above post are from that event?

What the Repack gang can be credited with is the marketing of what they were doing because some were framebuilders/engineers and they wanted to earn money. Some words were invented and a fun activiity, that was already many decades old, became a big thing thanks to industry contacts and then into an income, for a lucky few.

Thomas Stevens rode a penny farthing around the world in 1884. I read his journal. His mind wasn’t normal as far as obsessive determination went. He had a rain slicker, extra pair of sox and an extra shirt. The slicker doubled as a shelter. He wore out heavy reinforced boots. He ate what he could scrounge from the locals including bread that had cow manure mixed in. He never got sick. A few years later two college students did it on safety bikes. They were sick a lot, cholera, malaria, bad stuff. There was another person that attempted this on a safety bike around the same time and he disappeared in Turkey, probably murdered. The adventure bike society is named after Stephens. Most of his trip was off road, including across the western United States. Later in his trip he started to wear a pith helmet for sun protection and as a crash helmet. He got so good riding the high wheeler that he would do intentional headers, twisting on the way down to vault across irrigation ditches and small streams. His momentum would easily fling the bike across after him in one smooth move.

 

[Repack Rider]

The first time I took a balloon tire (tyre) bike on a dirt trail as an adult, was in 1973 when a friend called the house that Gary Fisher and I shared and said, "Hey remember when we were kids [in the 1950s] and rode our bikes on trails? Let's take your [balloon tire] town bikes out on a trail."

The difference was that by then we were adults and hard core cyclists. We were enjoying an activity formerly conducted almost exclusively by kids, and abandoned once that kid had a driving licence. As adults who owned fine racing bicycles, we had the knowledge and the ability to improve the bikes instead of relying on handed down scrap metal.

So we did.

Of all those kids who had ridden used bicycles on trails before we did, none had been inspired to build a bike specifically for that activity.

 

[Repack Rider]

In the second book we made, we included a few good articles from the early/mid 80s debating both sides of whether these new mountain bikes were acceptable RSF transport. There were strong opinions (as there are about ebikes now), but later in the 80s they seemed to be accepted.

Here is my article in the RSF club newsletter from the '80s.

 

[legrandefromage]

It is a well known fact that I, LGF the Sane invented mountain biking as we know it

Fact

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Thanks Graham.

I've looked through a good number of the journals (there's a full set in the archive) and never have seen any bike adverts. There are specific 'Rough-stuff' shoe adverts though!

Also having seen a lot of the 40,000+ photos in the archive, I can't say either I or the archivist have remarked on any obviously adapted bikes. The bikes seem to be mainly very standard tourers with 700C or 27" wheels (Dawes, Claud Butlers), with a few nice lightweights thrown in (curly Hetchins, Jack Taylors).

I've heard the same about Archie Woodward, and it does seem to be true, given the articles.

In the second book we made, we included a few good articles from the early/mid 80s debating both sides of whether these new mountain bikes were acceptable RSF transport. There were strong opinions (as there are about ebikes now), but later in the 80s they seemed to be accepted.

Thanks answering my question about whether custom-made roughstuff bikes were advertised the RSF Journal.

My guess is that enough roughstuff riders approached Jack Taylors for them to list a rougstuff-bike as a specific model. Maybe Taylor's didn't need to advertise their bikes in the RSF Journal? However, there being no other bike adverts suggests that such adverts were not allowed. I do remember seeing adverts for vacuum flask holders.

The reason why 650b wheels were chosen for such bikes, including the ones made for Finley-Scott, was probably due to the availability of French 650b randonneur 35-40mm wide balloon tyres and matching size lightweight alloy rims. Using 650b in preference to 700c or 27" would also make for stronger wheels and allow for more mudguard clearance.

I used to be a member of the RSF back in the 80s, and have joined in with their rides over the intervening years. I have usually been riding a Geoff Apps' Cleland or Highpath bike and have always found that using such specialist off-road bicycles has always split opinion amongst RSF members. I do however admire the inclusive ethos, where any type of bicycle is accepted. I also found that the variety of terrain that a determined rider can successfully traverse using an unmodified road-bike with three hub-gears, is remarkable.

 

[Frankenorange]

The first time I took a balloon tire (tyre) bike on a dirt trail as an adult, was in 1973 when a friend called the house that Gary Fisher and I shared and said, "Hey remember when we were kids [in the 1950s] and rode our bikes on trails? Let's take your [balloon tire] town bikes out on a trail."

The difference was that by then we were adults and hard core cyclists. We were enjoying an activity formerly conducted almost exclusively by kids, and abandoned once that kid had a driving licence. As adults who owned fine racing bicycles, we had the knowledge and the ability to improve the bikes instead of relying on handed down scrap metal.

So we did.

Of all those kids who had ridden used bicycles on trails before we did, none had been inspired to build a bike specifically for that activity.

"None had been inspired to build a bike specifically for that activity"

A few of us did because we had parents who took part in motorcycle trials/scrambling/car hillclimbs/rallying so we copied some of the bike stuff and borrowed their stopwatches. They made alot if stuff in sheds and welded stuff together for us and spread rear ends for hub gears.

No way we were the first to do it, either. It was all too simple and obvious for it to have been any "first".

 

[Nabeaquam]

The first time I took a balloon tire (tyre) bike on a dirt trail as an adult, was in 1973 when a friend called the house that Gary Fisher and I shared and said, "Hey remember when we were kids [in the 1950s] and rode our bikes on trails? Let's take your [balloon tire] town bikes out on a trail."

The difference was that by then we were adults and hard core cyclists. We were enjoying an activity formerly conducted almost exclusively by kids, and abandoned once that kid had a driving licence. As adults who owned fine racing bicycles, we had the knowledge and the ability to improve the bikes instead of relying on handed down scrap metal.

So we did.

Of all those kids who had ridden used bicycles on trails before we did, none had been inspired to build a bike specifically for that activity.

The French, Dutch and English built specialized off road bicycles in the late 1940s and 50s but as soon as the war recovery kicked in and they had money they bought scooters, MX bikes and cars. It was short lived phenomenon and only lasted about 10 years before dying out. They were a combo of kids and young adults that built theses bikes. I was in Europe in the mid 60s riding motorcycles everywhere and I saw urban and road bicycles, scooters, motorized bicycles, motorcycles and tiny cars. No off road bicycles by then. Car, motorcycle and road bike camping seemed Ike the big adventure everyone was on everywhere I went. My sister toured Europe by bicycle a few years later. She said she never saw any trackers either. She did England and the continent as far as Greece, south into Italy, Spain, Alps and the Low Countries. Wales and Holland were our favorite places.

 

[Frankenorange]

Thomas Stevens rode a penny farthing around the world in 1884. I read his journal. His mind wasn’t normal as far as obsessive determination went. He had a rain slicker, extra pair of sox and an extra shirt. The slicker doubled as a shelter. He wore out heavy reinforced boots. He ate what he could scrounge from the locals including bread that had cow manure mixed in. He never got sick. A few years later two college students did it on safety bikes. They were sick a lot, cholera, malaria, bad stuff. There was another person that attempted this on a safety bike around the same time and he disappeared in Turkey, probably murdered. The adventure bike society is named after Stephens. Most of his trip was off road, including across the western United States. Later in his trip he started to wear a pith helmet for sun protection and as a crash helmet. He got so good riding the high wheeler that he would do intentional headers, twisting on the way down to vault across irrigation ditches and small streams. His momentum would easily fling the bike across after him in one smooth move.

View attachment 761849

Interesting.

Have to take my hat off to Annie Londonderry who was the first woman to cycle around the world in 1894-95. Just cannot imagine how difficult it must have been with the prejudice that existed and the roads.

A british first, that you may not know of, was young Tessie Reynolds who, in 1893, rode from Brighton to London and back in record time.She was 16 and smashed the record and broke down all the societal barriers that existed for cycling women. She rode a mans drop bar bike, had more practical clothes made for her( this may not have been a first as i think an african american female cyclist did this before her-this needs checking), and did something that was considered unseemly. At first her record was not recognised because she was a woman!!

I am sure i read that the father built her bike from selected parts as nothing was available, off the shelf, to suit his daughter and her attempt on the unsealed roads. If i am remembering correctly then this could be the first custom build for a woman to complete a specific task?

Not exactly "mountainbikes" but pretty much every road was unsealed dirt/gravel/sand back then so definitely examples of what we would now see as offroad/gravel/adventure cycling.