Last year Geoff's nomination was supported by such mountain bike luminaries as Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly. However, many Hall of Fame members also wanted Marin' pioneer Alan Bonds to be elected. Because of the way the voting works, (up to 6 votes with the those with the highest number of votes being elected ), voting for more than one candidate can reduce the chances of the one you really want being elected. So people have to choose or risk neither winning.
Now that Alan Bonds' has been voted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame his supporters are free to cast their votes elsewhere.
Some American Mountain Bike Hall of Fame members who voted for Alan have told me that this year they intend to vote for Englishman Geoff Apps. Unlike Alan, Geoff never took part in the pioneering Marin County races and has never even set foot in California, But he is the Father of a little known and uniquely British form of off-road cycling based not around mountain bikes but his own design of Cross Country Cycle collectively known as ‘The Clelands'. So will some American members vote for an Englishman who was designing his off-road bikes before the term mountain bike was even coined?
Well Geoff Apps is better known and more highly regarded by the American pioneers than he is amongst many UK cyclists. Back in the early years Geoff corresponded with the likes of Fisher, Breeze and Kelly, ideas and components where exchanged. The Americans got 29er and 650B tyres, and Geoff's uncanny ability to preempt future developments:- larger wheels, upright frame geometry, twist grip gears, low pressure tyres on narrow rims, wide bottom brackets, short wheel basses, sloping top tubes, high bottom brackets etc. In return Geoff got confirmation that he was not alone in his dream that off-road cycling would one day become popular.
So their is a consensus amongst the US pioneers that Geoff deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
Geoff Apps may not be famous, but the recognition of his contribution to mountain biking is well overdue.
